Nicolas Maduro’s Grotesque Fraud in Venezuela
Incapable of stemming the opposing tide, the regime opted to manipulate the election results and make a mockery of the peoples will.
HAVANA TIMES – Venezuelans were the victims of a grotesque fraud in the presidential elections held on Sunday, July 28. The maneuvering – spearheaded by longtime Venezuelan ruler Nicolas Maduro and his followers, and set in motion from the moment the polling centers opened – has been clumsy, flagrant and lacking in credibility. With no shame whatsoever, they’ve made a mockery of the popular will expressed in the ballot boxes, with one sole objective: maintaining the corrupt, arbitrary and repressive group they’re all part of.
No one with the most fundamental democratic convictions can accept a maneuver of this nature. It violates the most basic principles of democracy and the supreme basis of any government’s legitimacy: to have obtained power through the free exercise of voting, including respect for the results.
In Venezuela, the opposite has occurred. The regime completely failed in its attempts to intimidate the opposition leaders, inhibit candidates from running (especially Maria Corina Machado), and confuse the electorate. Neither these not other perverse methods kept the candidacy of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia from the Democratic Unity Platform from sparking an unstoppable movement. Faced with a conclusive defeat, at the last-minute Maduro activated his extreme plan: to use his official control over the National Electoral Council to manipulate the voting results and construct a non-existent “reality.” In other words, as Maduro himself had put it, win “by hook or by crook.”
Just after midnight on Sunday, July 28, without releasing any detailed precinct voting results, the Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner with 51.2% of the votes, compared to 44.02% for Gonzalez, based on what they claimed were 80% of the polling places reporting. On Monday the 29th, in a hurry that made the fraud still more obvious, Elvis Amoroso, the Council’s president, officially proclaimed Maduro victorious and swore him in as the reelected Venezuelan president.
The people know better than anyone how colossal the fraud has been. They’re not accepting it, and it’s probable that they’ll continue to demonstrate their outrage with greater and greater force. Out of respect for their rights and valor, no truly democratic person or government should accept having their electoral will so ridiculed.
All of the serious polls coincided on an advantage of at least 30 percentage points for Gonzalez. Four surveys going into the voting booths on Sunday showed 70% of the voters in favor of Gonzalez. Tens of millions of Venezuelans went to the polls to support the opposition, defying threats and limitations.
Maduro hopes to convert his assault on power into a consummated fact, with no possible reversal. His election should remain roundly and absolutely unrecognized. There must be a definitive rejection of this manipulation of the [electoral] process, coupled with a complete refusal to recognize his bogus victory and a demand for a “complete review of the voting results, with the presence of independent electoral observers” in a transparent fashion that can leave no doubt of the results.
Those were the terms expressed on Monday, July 29, in a joint statement signed by the governments of Costa Rica, Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay. In addition, they announced their intention to call for an urgent meeting of the Organization of American States’ Permanent Council, “to issue a resolution that can safeguard the popular will.”
Chilean president Gabriel Boric spoke more bluntly on Sunday night: “In Chile, we won’t recognize any result that’s not verifiable,” he wrote on his social media accounts. Costa Rican president Rodrigo Chaves issued a brief statement “categorically” repudiating the proclamation of Maduro as president, an act Chaves termed “fraudulent.” Later on Monday night, Panamanian leader Jose Raul Mulino, after rejecting the official results from Venezuela, announced the suspension of diplomatic relations with that country and the removal of Panama’s diplomatic personnel from Caracas.
Other governments and presidents have been less forceful in their reactions. However, there’s been a broad demand for the voting results to be verified with transparency. This demand was expressed by Colombia and Brazil, as well as the European Union, Spain, and the United States. Former Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim, who had been part of a mission from the so-called Puebla Group, usually favorable towards the Maduro regime, declared that the Venezuelan authorities, “haven’t given the public the detailed results, polling place by polling place,” only released, “a number.” He added: “They have to show how that number was reached, site by site.”
Mexico, on the other hand, has expressed no criticism, and its president announced he’d await the official results – in other words, from the regime. El Salvador has remained silent. And unsurprisingly, the governments of Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea were quick to congratulate Maduro.
The indispensable international condemnation won’t be enough to slow Maduro, but it should be maintained, and lead to sanctions and isolation that will perhaps yield some fruits. In these very fluid and risky moments that Venezuela is experiencing, perhaps the greatest hope is for that condemnation, added to peaceful but massive popular protests, might lead to cracks in the ruling clique and an eventual withdrawal of support from the Armed Forces, if Maduro should opt for open repression.
None of the above can be classed as a reassuring perspective. However, it would be worse to accept the fraud and leave it unpunished, which would only bring greater disaster to Venezuela and the rest of the hemisphere.
Article originally published in “La Nacion de Costa Rica.”