The Monocle Minute

This Sunday’s Venezuelan presidential elections are impossible to predict. When analysts and voters claim this, it’s usually because the polls are so close that it’s a toss-up. But that’s not the case in Venezuela. Recent public-opinion surveys have placed the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, who is running on behalf of the banned María Corina Machado, 20 to 30 percentage points ahead of incumbent president Nicolás Maduro. Under normal circumstances, the opposition would win. But it is naive to think that Maduro will step aside without a fight.

According to a recent survey, more than 74 per cent of registered voters want a change of government. But these elections will not be free or fair. For one, González is only the opposition candidate because the Maduro administration prevented Machado from running; in November, she won more than 90 per cent of the vote in an opposition primary. Maduro’s government maintains control over all major media, has recently jailed or detained more than 70 opposition aides and is freely distributing public resources to bolster the hopes of its floundering president.

International mediation following the results will probably be required. Maduro has said there will be a “bloodbath” if he doesn’t win but it looks as though there could be one if he does too. Fearful of the consequences, the presidents of Colombia and Brazil have urged their neighbour to respect the will of the people, as have leaders in the US, UK and EU. But what exactly they can do to make Maduro act responsibly is unclear. The Venezuelan leader has been heavily sanctioned as long as he has been in office and in recent years, he has moved closer to Russia and China. Whatever happens on Sunday, the international community must be prepared. Since the Venezuelan leader’s number one-concern is the continuation of his despotic rule, their priority must be the prevention of loss of life.

Christopher Sabatini is a senior research fellow for Latin America at Chatham House. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Brazil’s government has launched the country’s first social-inclusion civil-aviation initiative, Voa Brasil (Fly Brazil), which aims to incentivise domestic travel. Some three million tickets have been released to Brazil’s 23.3 million retirees as a way to create demand for the 20 per cent of idle seats across all internal flights. One-way tickets cost up to R$200 (€33) and are available to pensioners who have not travelled in the past 12 months.

It’s good news for Brazilian retirees at a time when flying has become unaffordable for many. There are also plans to expand the scheme to students from public-education institutions. Brazil’s minister for ports and airports, Silvio Costa Filho, promised that if tickets sell out, national carriers will release more of them. Due to the fact that the programme is not subsidised by the government, airlines will have the freedom to decide which destinations are on offer.

The line-up for the 81st Venice International Film Festival has been announced. The event is the oldest of its kind in the world. More than 70 films will debut at this year’s edition, including Todd Phillips’s Joker: Folie à Deux, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, which will hope to match the success of its Golden Lion-winning predecessor, Joker.

Other top contenders are Pablo Larraín’s Maria, in which Angelina Jolie plays soprano Maria Callas, and Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, an adaptation of the William S Burroughs novel, starring Daniel Craig. From Darkness to Light, a documentary that features footage from legendary US comedian and actor Jerry Lewis’s unreleased Holocaust film, The Day the Clown Cried, will also screen at the festival. Last year’s Sag-Aftra strikes kept many of Hollywood’s greatest away from the floating city, so this year promises to be a glitzy, full-throttle return to celebrating film at its finest.

Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in Olympic history, was captured training on a beam yesterday. The Paris Olympics will give her a chance to vault back into the spotlight following her withdrawal from the 2020 Games in Tokyo. Her first competition will take place on Sunday.

We meet the founder of a French electric-motorcycle company that started in a small garage in Bayonne. Plus: the founders of a Paris beauty brand tell us about their mission to revive the country’s brush-making tradition.