I looked it up, and Chavez got 56% of the vote the first time. International observers thought the election was relatively clean. I think it might be as clean as Biden's election in 2020.

Nevertheless, the problem with Venezuela and California is that people voted in confiscatory policies - either nationalization or regulation. They did it twice in Venezuela. No one wants to invest in these places, and no one wants to be on the receiving end of their extreme environmental policies. All the refineries need to do is blink and there is another environmental lawsuit in Cali. This is why Venezuela is not going to get a jolt of oil investment and Cali cannot lure anyone back into Cali, which they will soon want to do.

In other words, just changing the government is not enough to make these places investable.