It happened in Caracas on June 9, 2016, when I was there to cover a series of violent protests that had broken out in Venezuela. Moments after we made it inside the building, Julio Borges, an opposition member of the assembly and its former president, arrived in bad shape. He had a bloody nose and said a group of opposition legislators like him had been attacked by colectivos as they were headed to the office of the national electoral authority. The month before, President Nicolás Maduro had declared a “constitutional state of emergency.” Even before that tumultuous period, it had become abundantly clear that Maduro’s government had absolute control of all three branches of government as well as the the National Electoral Council (CNE). And, as we had just witnessed, it also controlled the streets of Caracas. Maduro, now 61, is a former bus driver who became a Caracas metro system union leader…
