Voting in St Hugo's shadow

摘要

"Avote for Maduro is a vote for Cha-vez" proclaims a banner slung across a veranda in the 23 de Enero housing project overlooking the presidential palace in Caracas. The slogan comes from La Pied-rita, one of a dozen or so armed pro-government "collectives" that have carved out territories in the teeming western barrios of the Venezuelan capital. Their endorsement of Nicolas Maduro, Hugo Chavez's long-serving foreign minister and anointed successor, counts for a lot in these dusty streets adorned with revolutionary murals. Loyalty to "the process", as they call Chavez's 14-year rule, is sometimes enforced at gunpoint. But there is undeniable fervour here, too.