The boycott was strategic. Miguel Tinker Salas, Professor of Latin American History at Pomona College, and one of the world’s leading experts on Venezuelan history and politics, told me in a personal correspondence that “the opposition opted to abandon the electoral arena in the country and adopted the strategy of international pressure to oust Maduro. That is why they would not sign the negotiated agreement brokered last year by Jose Luis Zapatero that would have defused the current crisis.”
