You Choose but I Sing
By Caridad
HAVANA TIMES – Apologies to Benny More for borrowing the name of one of his best songs to make an analogy with Nicolas Maduro. Although mentioning only Nicolas Maduro is somewhat simplistic, when we know that his corrupt government is maintained not only thanks to a fleet of pro-government politicians and military personnel but also businesspeople and politicians who once identified themselves as opponents of chavismo.
Elections, according to the dictionary: A process in which voters designate public offices in a system of representative democracy with their votes.
“Citizens have the right to participate in public affairs, directly or through representatives, freely elected in periodic elections by universal suffrage.”
It’s already news that the Maduro government has set a date for the presidential elections. It is expected that on July 28, 2024, Venezuelans will be able to freely choose the next president of Venezuela.
(Wink: July 28 is the birthday of the late Hugo Chávez.)
In October of last year, opposition parties held their primary elections to determine who would be the presidential candidate. Venezuelans turned out in droves, for the first time in several years, to vote for a candidate: María Corina Machado. The former member of the National Assembly was elected by an overwhelming majority, and since then, there hasn’t been a day when representatives of Maduro’s regime haven’t attacked her in one way or another.
The main attack is resorting to a disqualification from holding public office, and the second, no less dangerous and despicable, is throwing several of her collaborators behind bars. And when I say throwing behind bars, I mean detentions where all their rights have been violated, including those of their defense. Sometimes “collaborating” is limited to renting out their own transportation to the ex-deputy’s team. From a simple bus driver to directors of the campaign in different areas of the country, they have been arrested on charges as false as “terrorism.”
Normal, we are in a dictatorship, right? That’s how dictators act, if they call for elections, they eliminate their opponents. Clinging to power is a disease, and highly contagious.
Since her election as the opposition candidate, the founder of the Vente Venezuela party has begun to visit each state of Venezuela. People come out in mass to listen to her and support her because they recognize in the candidate one of the few opposition figures who has not entered the regime’s game.
Nicolas Maduro does not have the support of the Venezuelan people. Determined to continue making a fool of himself, he has posted on social media some poorly made videos showing himself in a convertible military vehicle, surrounded by people screaming like fanatical rock teenagers. The camera moves nervously, almost always at night, with tight angles so you can’t see that the street is empty, that it is only a handful of people, desperate to give him pieces of paper with their names and phone numbers so that he can solve their problem, perhaps of health, lack of housing, or a family member unjustly imprisoned.
The dictator is the Venezuelan Socialist Party (PSUV) candidate for the upcoming elections (what a surprise!), but the electoral process in which he was supposedly chosen was secret. No one in Venezuela was called to vote for him in the upcoming elections. He self-elected (what a surprise!).
And so, Maduro seems to say to everyone, they can choose whomever they want, because in the end, he’s the one calling the shots.