by Jose Aguiar
CARACAS, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela is getting ready to hold gubernatorial elections scheduled for October amid an economic crisis further aggravated by U.S. sanctions.
The elections were originally scheduled for December 2016, but postponed until December of this year owing to Venezuela's protracted political crisis.
The ruling socialist party, the United Socialist Party (PSUV), will take part in these elections following the successful election of the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) in the July 30 poll, which drew more than 8 million voters.
But crushing sanctions and continuing shortages of basic needs, including food and medicine, make the results of the upcoming elections unpredictable.
According to sociologist Miguel Contreras, the ANC, a powerful, though temporary legislative body charged with drafting a new constitution, decided to move ahead the regional vote after detecting a certain weakness in the coalition of right-wing opposition parties, known by its Spanish acronym MUD.
Contreras, who teaches at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), believed the ANC saw an opportunity in "the fracture of the opposition" and the "climate of political legitimacy" that it lent to the government.
However, the decision to hold elections earlier may be premature, he added.
The ANC should first "build economic mechanisms or marshal the country's economic powers, in keeping with a work plan, to try and place the country on a path to recovery, before heading to the polls," said Contreras.
Far from seeing an economic improvement since the end of July, the inflation rate has skyrocketed, registering "the highest (rate) of the past three years," said the academic.
The International Monetary Fund has forecast that the inflation rate in Venezuela could reach 720 percent this year.
"It is necessary to make macroeconomic decisions, and so far there have been no discussions of aspects of the macro economy there (at the ANC) to provide confidence to (domestic) investors," he said.
That would be an essential step if Venezuela wants to reduce its reliance on oil exports and diversify its productive sector, as the government intends, said Contreras.
Oil exports account for 96 percent of the country's foreign reserves.
The United States imposed new sanctions on Venezuela on Aug. 25, including restrictions on the trading of Venezuelan bonds on American financial markets.
The sanctions, which came after the Venezuelan government swore in the ANC, has put the supply of oil to the United States at risk, said the Venezuelan foreign ministry on Wednesday.
In 2016, the United States imported an average of 741,000 barrels of oil per day from Venezuela, according to official figures.
