By Hedelberto López Blanch on July 10, 2024
Illustration: Adán Iglesias Toledo.
Before the general elections to be held on July 28 in Venezuela, the United States and Western nations have unleashed a fierce campaign against the Bolivarian Revolution, against its candidate Nicolás Maduro and in support of the right-wing opposition, which they claim to be the winner through adulterated and constant polls.
Infobae, El País, CNN, BBC, France24, Deutsche welle, Bloomberg, EFE, AP and all the immense machinery of the Western hegemonic media have been engaged for months in highlighting that there will be fraud in the elections; they constantly raise the figure of María Corina Machado, highlight the “sure victory” of the opposition and at the same time try to denigrate “chavismo” with false and harmful news.
Two of the 10 candidates vying for the presidency, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD, ultra-right) and Enrique Marquez of the Centrados Party, refused to sign an agreement that would recognize the results of the elections, which opens the doors so that, if Maduro wins, they would call for immediate demonstrations against the government and try to engulf the country in a spiral of violence.
Venezuela’s Attorney General, Tarek William Saab expressed: “Almost everyone signed it, but this sector of the extreme right wing does not. Why? Because I warn, as Attorney General of the Republic, that the agenda of this extreme right sector is not peace, it is not dialogue, it is not debate, it is not the electoral path”.
He added that this minority sector does not represent the will of democratic justice to be in peace and demonstrated it when it participated in the assassination attempts against President Maduro, in the attempted assaults to military barracks, in the failed coup d’état of April 2002 against Hugo Chávez and in the bloody guarimbas that occurred between 2014-2017.
In the more than two dozen elections held in Venezuela since 1999, the right-wing opposition has always branded them as “electoral fraud” and only on one occasion when they obtained the parliamentary majority in 2015 did they claim they were “clean”.
Caracas has one of the safest, fastest and most computerized electoral systems in the world, to which numerous international organizations and independent observers come to verify the veracity of the act so it is very difficult to commit fraud.
The electoral simulation held last June 30 was qualified as a success by the National Electoral Council (CNE) which showed the organization, the effectiveness of the system and the diversity of political identities in the country in view of the July 28 presidential elections.
As has been demonstrated since the Bolivarian leader Hugo Chávez Frías won the elections in 1999, the United States has used all kinds of economic extortions, aggressions, armed attacks and even assassination attempts to try to overthrow the Venezuelan government, which in spite of these conditions has maintained the banners of sovereignty and independence.
For the next elections, Washington is constantly raising the figure of María Corina Machado, who has a long record of actions against the Bolivarian Republic, beginning in 2005 when she met in the White House with President George W. Bush, to whom she asked for support to overthrow Chávez.
In 2002 she signed the “Carmona decree” which validated the coup attempt against Chávez and later she was tried for conspiracy when she received 53,000 dollars from an NGO financed by the United States.
For both charges she was sentenced to 28 years in prison but Chávez amnestied her. She later supported and encouraged the guarimbas and even requested the OAS to authorize a military intervention in the country.
By Washington’s decision, Corina Machado has put all her efforts so that Edmundo Gonzalez of the United Democratic Platform may win a hypothetical victory. This gentleman, as denounced by the first vice-president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, Diosdado Cabello, is possibly collaborating with the CIA since he studied at a private university in that country between 1976-1981.
From his page in social networks, González Urrutia supported the invasion of Libya by NATO and the assassination of the president of that country, Muammar El Kadhafi. Although he has a poor political career, in his campaign program he declares his intention to review relations with China and Iran, even though such measure may have negative consequences for the economy of Caracas.
As it is logical, the ultra-right candidate has wide support from the United States and the hegemonic media that have promoted a strong campaign in favor of elevating Gonzalez’s figure and at the same time creating the atmosphere that Maduro’s government is preparing an electoral fraud.
Recently, several sabotages have been committed in the Bolivarian country against infrastructures (border bridges and electric systems) and even the possible commission of an assassination against the current president and PSUV candidate with the consent of Colombian paramilitary groups.
Venezuela and Latin America must be very alert because the right-wing forces supported by Washington are capable of committing any misdeed in order to take over the wealth of the Bolivarian nation and at the same time weaken the progressive integration of the countries of the region. The empire lurks in Latin America.
Hedelberto López Blanch is a Cuban journalist. He writes for the daily Juventud Rebelde and the weekly Opciones and the author of several books.
Source: Cuba en Resumen