We have been through the election scenerio before and really I doubt it has any influence. "Illegal" mining has been the reason for environmental devastation and lack of taxes/revenue generation for the "official" government. It makes sense to have a combination scenerio to satisfy the majority of people. An example is what Crystallex has been doing for years. They have provided "legal" assistance to small scale miners, unfortunately, we have not been the recipient of the other half yet.

The main reason that the elections really don't matter in this area as much is the population densities. From Wiki:

About 85% of the population live in urban areas in the northern portion of the country and currently resides in the urban conglomerations (Caracas, Maracay, Maracaibo, Valencia, etc.) that are concentrated in Venezuela's northern coastal mountain strip. Nearly half of Venezuela's geographic area lies south of the Orinoco River; however, this region contains only 5% of the Venezuelan population.

Kind of like California voting Republican. Land mass overwhelmingly Republican, but population centers overwhelmingly Democrat. This is just an assembly election (partial?)this go-round.

Finally, the military didn't spend the last several months running the illegal miners out just to sit and not have a solution. They are already pissed at Chavez' government. We have been reading these type of local articles for years.