According to Mark Weisbrot, in the recent Venezuelan election:

The opposition got their message out and their voters to the polls, which is not surprising, given the state of the economy and the resources of the opposition. They still have most of the wealth and income of the country, they get millions of dollars from the U.S. government and they receive a lot of media coverage, too. Data from the Carter Center for the 2013 presidential election, for example, show that the opposition candidate got more TV coverage than the government candidate, and more of that coverage was favorable.

On this basis, he concludes:

So the Venezuelan political system, with all its flaws, is much more democratic than the conventional wisdom has maintained.

… if by "democratic" one means that, with patience, one can eventually buy an election victory.

P.S. Greg Palast reckons:

Chavez' revolution is permanent. The redistribution of wealth and power to the Black and Indian population from the white "Spaniards" is irreversible.

Chavez is gone but Chavismo lives despite the crying and moaning of the world financial elite.

Which I'd like to believe, despite the fact that Palast is in the habit of wearing a hat indoors. I can't be having that sort of nonsense. A cap of some kind (other than baseball) maybe, if it's cold, but not the full rumpled gumshoe fedora.

P.P.S. And then there's this.