The Opposition has tried to unseat the Chavistas in every election for over 25 years now. Until the most recent election, the Opposition lost every single time except once when they defeated a rewrite of the Constitution by 51-49%. The Opposition simply does not have the support of the majority and never has. Since they do not have majority support for their agenda, they have been trying extra-democratic means to unseat the Chavistas. When it comes to getting rid of the Chavistas, anything goes.
The Opposition tried to unseat Chavez himself many times, and he won 18 consecutive elections. They also had a recall vote that failed. The opposition periodically boycotted the elections, in fact, they boycotted the majority of the elections.
If the Opposition thought they were going to lose, they would start up a lying narrative that the elections were going to unfair and riddled with fraud. Good trick! If you are going to lose, accuse the winning side of electoral fraud! There is no electoral fraud, and the elections have all been free and fair as certified by many international observers. However, the US has screamed fraud and unfair election every time Chavez won. The US trick is that if Chavez wins, it’s always automatically fraud. The only time the US would say there was no fraud is if the Opposition ever won.
The election systems got better and better due to pressure on the Chavistas from the US. The Chavista electoral system is now the fairest election system on the face of the Earth. In the recent election that was won by Maduro, once again the Opposition screamed unfair and fraud all the way leading up to the election. The US also yelled fraud and unfair elections in the whole run-up to the elections. There was nothing unfair. Venezuela’s elections are the fairest on Earth. The US and the Opposition are just lying like they always do.
Finally Maduro won by a close vote, and the Opposition immediately screamed fraud. They made up all sort of lies about being intimidated as polling places and other nonsense. Then the entire Opposition press the next day ran many big stories screaming that the election had been a fraud. They used many dramatic photos, including a number of photos of Venezuelan ballot boxes discarded in ravines. The US also screamed that the elections were unfair and that Maduro cheated. The US began demanding that since Maduro won by such a close margin, that there needed to be a bicameral government with the Chavistas giving half the government to the Opposition. Bullshit or what?
All of this profoundly immoral and dishonest reporting, which amounted to entire papers written from front page to back with nothing but lies, false charges and made up stuff created an explosive situation in the country.