The Venezuelan government is claiming that Nicolas Maduro has won re-election to a third term as President. However, this claim does more to illustrate the incompatibility of a democratic political system and a socialist economic system than it does to establish Maduro's legitimacy as Venezuela's President.
The problem is that socialist systems centralize economic power in the hands of government. Once that happens, the government also has the power to subvert the democratic process by punishing any political opposition economically.
