Venezuela goes to the polls on 28 July 2024 to choose a president for a six-year term beginning on 10 January 2025. The second term of incumbent President Maduro has continued the radical transformation that began under Hugo Chavez. This webinar, the second of two involving a wide range of expert commentators, will analyse the challenges of a decisive moment in Venezuela’s history. THE PANEL Benjamin Norton is the founder and editor of the independent news website Geopolitical Economy Report, where he does original reporting in both English and Spanish. Benjamin has reported from numerous countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Colombia, and more. His journalistic work has been published in dozens of media outlets, and he has done interviews on a wide range of relevant news outlets. Alan MacLeod is a member of the Glasgow University Media Group and a Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams. Diego Sequera is a journalist, writer, translator, editor and political analyst based in Caracas. He is a founding member of Misión Verdad, where he currently writes about geopolitics, global conflict, and Latinamerican and Venezuelan history and politics. Steve Ellner is currently an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives. He is a retired professor from the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela where he taught economic history and political science from 1977 to 2003. Among his more than a dozen books on Latin American politics and history is his soon-to-be released edited Latin America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings (Rowman & Littlefield). He has published on the op-ed pages of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Saheli Chowdhury – Moderator is a co-editor and contributor of Orinoco Tribune. She is a Bengali socialist interested in anti-imperialist struggles throughout the world and especially in the Global South. Organizers Orinoco Tribune and the International Manifesto Group Co-sponsors Alliance for Global Justice, Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (UK), Geopolitical Economy Report, Louis Riel Bolivarian Circle, Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice, Venezuela Solidarity Network (US)