Maduro “Wins” Pseudo Election in Venezuela
HAVANA TIMES – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claimed a sweeping victory in parliamentary elections Sunday, boycotted by a weakened opposition, reported dpa.
Just over 30% of the registered voters participated in the widely discredited vote. Maduro said on Monday that he and his Socialist allies had won just over 67% of the vote. Other lesser parties that were allowed to participate received 32 percent, said Maduro’s election officials.
The figures are based on 82 percent of the votes counted, said Maduro’s top election official Indira Alfonzo, early Monday.
The taking of the country’s only opposition-controlled State institution “officially” gives Maduro dictatorial powers. In effect, the Assembly was already preempted by Maduro’s parallel Constituent Assembly created in 2017. Now the president takes full “official” control of the national legislature.
Curiously the 67 percent is the same amount supposedly garnered by Maduro in the 2018 presidential elections. Those elections were also without real opposition participation as the main opposition coalition was banned from taking part.
We say “supposedly” because those elections and Sunday’s were without independent observation and widely considered fraudulent.
The leading opposition parties boycotted the election
The main opposition parties boycotted the Assembly elections, headed by opposition leader and parliamentary speaker Juan Guaido.
“The dictatorship does not want to conduct an election, but destroy the hopes of a country,” Guaido wrote on Twitter.
“The election is a fraud by the dictatorship led by Nicolas Maduro and will make the crisis in our country only worse,” wrote Julio Borges, the foreign minister of Guaido’s counter-government on Twitter.
Telesur put the voter turnout at around 31 per cent. More than 20 million people were eligible to elect 277 members of the National Assembly, an increase of 110 lawmakers compared to the outgoing parliament.
Maduro, who won a second term in 2018 elections widely criticized as undemocratic, has presided over an economic meltdown. The prolonged crisis includes hyperinflation, acute goods shortages and a plunge in oil production. Desperation has led some 5 million Venezuelans to flee the country, scattered throughout the continent and beyond.
Maduro has also cracked down on the opposition, with UN investigators accusing the government of grave human rights violations, including thousands of killings by security forces.
No guarantees, no observers to verify the vote
The European Union refused to send observers to monitor the vote, which the United States and the Organization of American States also criticized as lacking democratic guarantees.
Meanwhile, Maduro called on the international community to accept the election results. “We respect the right of self-determination of other peoples,” he wrote on Twitter. “We demand respect for the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people.”
Canada said on Sunday it would not accept the election results, as did Colombia, noted dpa.
Guaido is seen as weakened after his confrontational strategy against Maduro failed to oust the president. His future as a shadow president will partly depend on whether the US changes its policy on Venezuela after president-elect Joe Biden takes office.
The United States has not imported 1 drop of Venezuelan oil since June 2019. We do not need, nor are we buying their oil. The US became energy independent in 2019. See the sources. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMUSVE1&f=M.
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/fossil-fuels/gas-and-oil/the-united-states-was-energy-independent-in-2019-for-the-first-time-since-1957/
“Canada said on Sunday it would not accept the election results, as did Colombia, noted dpa.” No surprise there.
Not only Canada, but the entire Lima Group has been against Maduro’s dictatorial decrees since his refusal to have free, fair and meaningful elections in his country since his inauguration years ago.
“The governments of Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela, members of the Lima Group, reiterate their commitment to support the return of democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela, as well as the call made at their last ministerial meeting, held in Canada, for the international community to send a clear and unequivocal message to end the crisis affecting the Venezuelan people . . .” (April 2, 2020 Government of Canada website)
So, after this so called cooked up Venezuelan “election” where does this leave Maduro and his so called government in relation to the rest of the civilized world? He has a few friends, namely, Russia, Cuba, China, and that is about it.
Joe Biden has already put Maduro on notice that his incoming Democratic administration will not tolerate anymore suffering of the Venezuelan citizens. So, Maduro does not have an ally in Washington and everyone knows from history without some form of economic support from the U.S. Venezuela will continue to be a target for covert operations by the United States. Venezuela has resources that benefit the U.S. and as such will not have them easily carted away unchallenged by other state actors from afar.
Isolated, Maduro can continue with his socialist Bolivarian revolution to which few Venezuelans find sustainable. Those too poor to leave the country, too impoverished to do anything else but accept the pittance handed out to them from the socialist government vote for him otherwise they believe the alternative is worse.
Where does this leave Guido the recognized leader of the country as anointed by the above Lima Group? He no longer has any legal power because Maduro ensured that he, Maduro, wins the entire government levers of power. Politically within Venezuela Guido has been castrated but perhaps outside his country he may still garner sympathetic support – the Lima group for sure – which is all that is needed to continue to be a political thorn to Maduro’s side.
“We demand respect for the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people.”, Maduro said after his claim to power.
But, wait a minute, when respect is asked of him to conduct free, fair, democratic elections, he rejects, reneges, obfuscates, and then jettisons the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people to the curb by once again declaring himself President via a rigged election.
Dictators have no shame.