http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/world/americas/nicolas-maduro-venezuela-unga-2016-united-nationshtml.html 2016-09-21 21:30:14 Nicolás Maduro: Lacking Oil Cash and Panache, He Will Face Skeptics The Venezuelan president, in his General Assembly speech, may simply need to assure supporters that the region’s leftist shift survives. === Flush with oil money and political bravado, Hugo Chávez of In some ways, Mr. Maduro must simply assure supporters that the region’s leftist shift survives. From Brazil to Argentina, left-wing leaders have fallen, and Venezuela’s Socialist-inspired revolution is struggling because of the country’s economic disaster, aggravated by the collapse in oil prices. The month’s circumstances help him: Venezuela is hosting the summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, and Mr. Maduro seems keen to boast on Tuesday that Venezuela is not alone in its fight against Yankee imperialism. Still, on a visit this month to a town near the meeting, Mr. Maduro was Mr. Maduro will face skeptics at the United Nations, but certainly a more friendly audience than those at home. There, Mr. Maduro is confronting calls for his ouster — what his critics hope to be a second act to the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff last month in Brazil. Venezuelans have been awaiting a decision of the country’s electoral commission, controlled by Mr. Maduro’s government, on when voters might hold a recall referendum. Mr. Maduro may use his General Assembly speech to paint political opponents as pawns of the United States, repeating assertions that they are organizing a coup. Mr. Maduro may also use the speech to counter growing perceptions that his country has become a dystopia because of food shortages, a collapsing health care system and rising crime. His opposition is calling for international institutions to declare a humanitarian crisis over the country’s lack of medicine.