VENEZUELA-Maduro With 75% Probability Of Win According To Bettors

Venezuela holds its presidential election on Sunday 28 July with the vote potentially proving seismic with regards to the country's political and economic environment. Incumbent President Nicolás Maduro is seeking a third six-year term in office, while the opposition has coalesced around a single candidate (previously-unknown diplomat Edmundo González), raising the prospect of the ouster of the governing far-left United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) for the first time in 25 years.

• An Oct 2023 agreement between the gov't and opposition on holding free and fair elections saw the US remove a ban on the secondary trading of Venezuelan gov't bonds and relax various sanctions on hydrocarbons for an initial six months.
• The Maduro gov'ts actions since then - notably barring main opposition figure María Corina Machado from standing for the presidency - has seen the sanctions relief expire and millions of dollars in aid frozen.
• While the election has been billed as more open than previous contests, there appears to be broad expectation that Maduro will win, as he said himselfin a February rally "by hook or by crook".
• Political betting markets show Maduro as the strong favourite, with a 75% implied probability of winning according to data from Polymarket.
• The huge exodus of Venezuelans, fleeing widespread poverty caused by the country's economic collapse, will also depress the opposition's chances. Of the estimated7.8mn Venezuelans living abroad, less than 1% are registered as out-of-country voters. Moreover, neither the US nor Ecuador, each with Venezeulan populations in the hundreds of thousands, have Venezuelan consulates for expats to vote at.