Both Venezuela and Bolivia will hold watershed elections this December 4. Political pictures, and the outlook for democracy, could change as a result.

Venezuela will elect National Assembly members ahead of dictator Hugo Chavez’s planned “changes” to the constitution. Bolivia will hold long-anticipated presidential elections after the leftist street-mob toppling of their second president in two years, the work of activists linked to Castro ally Evo Morales.

Both elections are showing signs of crisis ahead of the vote. Here is a brief roundup:

In Venezuela:

Francisco Toro at Caracas Chronicles writes that the opposition, which has now united, must deal with the problem of encouraging people to vote at all, following its long campaign to persuade everyone that fraud had taken place earlier. He neatly outlines a set of recommendations from left-leaning (but good) opposition newspaper editor Teodoro Petkoff about what the opposition should do now and do quickly.

Miguel Octavio at Devil’s Excrement writes that Sumate, the non-government organization that strives to ensure clean elections, has come out with a report showing that these elections will be anything but. This isn’t even the electronic fraud at the ballot box that people have come to suspect every election night, but pre-election gerrymandering to ensure that the chavistas have two shots at taking the majority in the election. He explains it out and warns that by doing this, not only has the opposition been decimated, but even the Chavista allies have been robbed of seats – these are Chavez’s own friends. This piece is definitely worth a look.

Daniel Duquenal, at Venezuela News & Views writes that the internal opposition is not in reality united as an alternative program, but only a united front desperate to ensure that it does not get fully trounced, given the aggressive moves by the Chavistas to ensure election victory. He has interesting color on the mercilessness of the Chavista political machine on even its own allies and notes with concern some reasons why turnout is likely to be low.

In Bolivia:

Miguel Buitrago at MABB writes that a crisis is building over the reallocation of congressional seats. The economically vibrant and industrious region of Santa Cruz has attracted population, while Marxist-leaning areas elsewhere have lost population. A judge recently ruled that congressional seats – which may be key to determining who wins the presidency, given that there are 8 candidates – must be reallocated to reflect this population reality. That’s enraged Evo Morales and his leftist crew, because they will lose seats and possibly the presidency as a result. The re-allocations of seats themselves could delay the elections. Morales and crew are promising more roadblocks and revolt if elections are delayed. Miguel – who has always been quite circumspect – thinks this could be explosive. Coming from him, this is noteworthy.

Alvaro Ruiz-Navajas at the newly renamed Off-Topic blog has a collection of links of the main political candidates’ sites, with a brief summary of each candidates’ positions, very concisely written. He also has an important post on the growing popularity of Fidel Castro, something we noted here a couple weeks ago.

There’s more material and I will update it soon – must get to work now but will have more time to finish in a couple hours