By Carola Chávez on March 20, 2024
Indigenous people in Delta Amacuro state of Venezuela hold posters that read “Maduro is my candidate” and “Hope is in the streets.” Photo: X/GobLizeta.
At first, Nicolás became my candidate because I knew that Chávez knew. And Chávez told us, in that heartbreaking moment, when we felt the ground opening beneath our feet, that Nicolás was the one who was going to lead us safely through the storm that Chávez did not doubt would come.
And the storm did not wait even half a second. It did not give us even a moment to mourn the father who left us. It arrived mercilessly, heartlessly, and hit us viciously, assuming that we were already close to breaking to pieces and falling.
That is how Nicolás started the administration of this complex, painful stage. He, an orphan himself, took us in as orphans. Brave like few others, he put his heart and his life into fulfilling the task that Chávez left him, that Chávez left us…
The enemy’s strategy was—and is—a dogfight. We Venezuelans would kill each other to serve the country on a platter to transnational corporations. So many times they took us to the edge of that abyss. So many times, Nicolás, with a cool head, and nerves of steel, stopped the violence and left the hawks waiting… and angry. Nicolás, I discovered, is the prime example of strategic patience.
They did not take into account his cunning.
They called him “Maburro” and only they believed it. Pride did not allow them to see the shine in Nicolás’ eyes. A brilliance of intelligence, yes, but more important than that, the brilliance of a good, sensitive, humble soul, who did not let himself get drunk power, which is intoxicating for those weak in soul and character. Neither in soul nor in character, Nicolás has no weakness.
There in the presidency, in the very difficult plane of high-level politics, is the same person: Nicolás, the good, patient man who believes in collective leadership, who knows how to listen, who wants to listen… Nicolás, one in a lifetime, the boy who walked the streets and neighborhoods of Caracas inventing ways to make things better for everyone.
Target of every dirty war, he has defeated them with the truth. Early on, the traitors accused him of being a traitor, but Nicolás did not surrender, not even when he was under pressure and threats from the Three Stooges—Bolton, Pompeo and Pence—who publicly told him to hand over the country in exchange for a multimillion-dollar retirement in a tropical paradise. An amazing offer for cowardly and traitorous “leaders”: millions of dollars and a big house in Miami in exchange for not screwing over the master. How wrong they always are with Nicolás! Go shove it!
Facing our stubborn decision to be free and sovereign, they waged wars of all kinds and all generations against us. Venezuela became an experimental field for perverse war methods. What have they not done to us? Economic warfare, psychological warfare, gang warfare, sabotage of infrastructure, invasions with mercenaries, assassination attempts with drones, blockade, looting of our assets abroad…
To each attack we had a strategic response, always in defense of the Homeland, in defense of our people hit by so much viciousness and so much evil. Each obstacle became a new idea, something to overcome and we overcome it. Nicolás and the Chavista people who have known how to accompany him because Nicolás knew how to lead us.
So many times so close to the point of no return caused by violence, today we enjoy the peace that we built by hand, and all the anguish that we experienced just a few years ago seems so far away. It is a relief to feel the anguish far away, but it is a danger to forget where we come from and with whom. Who has even made miracles to achieve peace and stability that allows us today to open windows and see the possible, bright future ahead of us?
It is dangerous to forget because there is only revenge, conflict, surrender, setbacks, and war on the other side: everything they have tried, everything we have avoided and overcome.
Nicolás is the only candidate who gives us the certainties of peace, dignity, inclusion, stability, future… and a lot of hope, for everything we can still do.
Because of what we have experienced, because of what we have achieved, because of what we must continue to achieve… because I love him very much and because I respect and admire him even more, Nicolás is my candidate.
Source: Orinoco Tribune