A Reflection On Venezuela
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Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Boaventura de Sousa Santos is the emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. His most recent book is Decolonizing the University: The Challenge of Deep Cognitive Justice.
August 2, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos
A reflection on Venezuela
I am not, nor have I ever been, a staunch Chavista. Hugo Chavez was a benevolent political meteorite who shook the Latin American sub-continent and the world in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2013, shortly after Hugo Chavez’s death, I wrote a piece entitled “Hugo Chavez: the legacy and the challenges”. I identified some signs of authoritarianism and bureaucratization and ended the text with the following sentence: “Without external interference, I am sure that Venezuela would know how to find a non-violent and democratic solution. Unfortunately, what is happening is that all means are being used to turn the poor against Chavismo, the social base of the Bolivarian revolution and those who have benefited most from it. And, at the same time, to provoke a rupture in the Armed Forces and a consequent military coup to oust Maduro. Europe’s foreign policy (if it can be called that) could be a moderating force if it hadn’t lost its soul in the meantime.”[i] I have to admit that my fear has not been realized to date, although there has been no shortage of attempts to make it happen. I believe that the current moment is yet another such attempt. Hence the importance of reflecting on the clamor in the Western media about the possibility of fraud in the recent elections in Venezuela and the consensus on the right and left about the need to audit the results. This perplexes me greatly and forces me to reflect.
1. The Venezuelan electoral system has been unanimously considered one of the most secure and protected against fraud. It requires four stages of identification: registration on the electoral roll, electronic voting, paper ballot extraction, and the voter’s fingerprint. The numbers must match. Of course, no electoral system is completely immune to fraud, but when we compare it to the electoral systems of other countries (such as the US or Portugal), the Venezuelan system is more secure. Why is it so obvious to so many people that there may have been fraud?
2. The opposition had been announcing that it would only recognize the results if it won the elections. In this respect, it was following a practice that is becoming widespread among far-right forces running for election (Trump in 2020, Bolsonaro in 2022, Milei in 2023). This should call for some caution on the part of democratic forces, lest their insistence on auditing serve as a crutch for political forces that, supposedly in the name of democracy, want to destroy it.
3. Outside of Venezuela, the most vociferous forces in defense of Venezuelan democracy are far-right political forces that in their own countries have advocated or practiced coups d’état and electoral fraud. In Brazil, with the active collaboration of the US, Jair Bolsonaro and the political and military forces that supported him were the protagonists of the most clamorous electoral fraud of the last decade. They managed to disable and put in prison for more than 500 days the candidate who would certainly have won the elections, Lula da Silva; they easily manipulated the media and the courts; and the 2018 election was declared valid internationally without any reservations. This shows that the media-political clamor about the possibility of fraud and the need to verify the results is not based, contrary to what it seems, on a deep-rooted love of democracy, but rather on other reasons, which I’ll explain below.
4. The double standards go far beyond the far-right forces and the primitivism of their considerations. European countries, which pride themselves on being impeccable democracies, were almost unanimous in recognizing as the legitimate president of Venezuela a suit who had proclaimed himself president in a square in Caracas. I’m referring to Mr. Juan Guaidó, on 23 January 2019. How can it be explained that, in this case, no care was taken to verify the democratic processes? It’s all the more shocking when we compare this apparent negligence with the zeal of now, regarding an election that had more than 900 observers from almost 100 countries? Incidentally, in an aside that adds to the perplexity, one wonders why it is only in a few countries that it is so crucial to use external observers to give credibility to electoral processes. If the possibility of fraud always exists, the need for observers should be universal and supervised by the UN.
5. I don’t dispute the reasons for Maria Corina Machado’s disqualification (it is well known that she took part in several coup attempts against the Bolivarian government and even called for foreign military intervention), but the choice of her replacement, former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, is quite perplexing. There is something disturbingly caricatured about the Venezuelan opposition. First, it was Juan Guaidó; now it’s a gentleman who looked like he’d just left a nursing home for a leisure activity that happened to be a presidential candidacy. I only mention this because Edmundo Gonzalez’s hands may eventually be stained with blood. Between 1981 and 1983 Edmundo Gonzalez was the first secretary of the Venezuelan Embassy in El Salvador, whose ambassador was Leopoldo Castillo, known as Matacuras (priest killer). At the time, the Condor Plan for counter-insurgency, promoted by Ronald Reagan, was being implemented in that country with the aim of preventing the advance of the revolutionary forces of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). This plan included the execution of Operation Centaur, which involved the army and death squads and aimed to assassinate revolutionaries and, in particular, members of religious communities based on liberation theology. A total of 13,194 people were murdered, including Don Oscar Romero, now a saint in the Catholic Church, four Maryknoll nuns and five priests. According to CIA data declassified in 2009, Leopoldo Castillo appears to be co-responsible for the coordination and execution of Operation Centaur. Edmundo Gonzalez was the first secretary of the Venezuelan Embassy. The crimes committed are crimes against humanity and as such are imprescriptible.[ii]
Why all the clamor about possible electoral fraud?
The short answer to this question is this: Venezuela is the only country in Latin America where two fundamental resources are not controlled by the US: the armed forces and natural resources (the largest reserves of oil, rare earths, gold, iron, etc.). Throughout the 20th century, the US repeatedly intervened in Venezuela’s elections with the aim of guaranteeing its access to natural resources. They have always done so with the help of a very small number of oligarchic families, some of whom have controlled the country’s wealth since the 16th century and the days of the encomiendas. Maria Corina Machado belongs to one of these families. Her electoral program is very similar to Javier Milei’s and she has already pledged in an interview that, if she were president, she would move the Venezuelan Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It’s a far-right program that has been supported by the US and, lately, by the oligarch of oligarchs, Elon Musk.
Because it doesn’t control the two resources I mentioned, the US has used the two strategies at its disposal (in addition to electoral interference and support for the opposition): participation in coups d’état, which may or may not include assassination attempts on the leaders to be taken down; and economic sanctions. At the moment, Venezuela is being punished with 930 sanctions that have been imposed for almost two decades. The sanctions have caused the abrupt impoverishment of Venezuela and have been responsible for thousands of deaths due to the lack of essential life-saving medicines (for example, for a period, insulin). This abrupt impoverishment led to the suspension of many of the government’s redistributive policies and, ultimately, to emigration. More than seven million people.
There’s no doubt that a country with so many millions of citizens forced to emigrate can’t be doing well. And it’s understandable that many of these emigrants see the defeat of Nicolas Maduro as an end to the sanctions and their hope of returning. In this context, two thoughts come to mind. The first is that Maduro has liberalized the economy in recent years, adopting some measures that can hardly be considered socialist or even left-wing. Many deals are being signed with large US and European companies, in the oil sector and beyond. Today, the Venezuelan economy is one of the fastest-growing in Latin America, but obviously this comes after brutal impoverishment. How far this new (Chinese-inspired?) economic model can succeed is an open question.
The second thought is that, if we look at the international panorama of migration and refugees, Venezuela is the only case where the media attention is centered on the country from which the displaced people are leaving. In all other cases, attention is centered on the “receiving” countries (which often includes deportation). Once again, the reason seems to be this: the policy of destabilization and demonization of the Bolivarian government and the creation of a consensus to activate the third US weapon: the infamous regime change. In fact, I think that the social unrest currently underway is aimed at creating a Maidan Revolution ten years later. I’m referring to the social unrest in Ukraine in 2014 that led to the flight of the democratically elected president, Victor Yanukovych, and, shortly afterwards, to the election of Volodymyr Zelensky. The reason why a “color revolution” is unlikely to take place in Venezuela is that the US has no Venezuelan military trained at the School of the Americas, where so many coups have been forged. The Venezuelan Armed Forces have already recognized the election results.
But there will certainly be more attempts in the future, especially since Venezuela has three major allies: China, Russia and Iran, three enemies of the US. The first two are original members of the BRICS and the third will soon join them. This means that, although the discursive façade is about electoral fraud and democracy, what is at stake is the geopolitical turmoil that Maduro’s victory is causing. This should make the leaders of Latin American countries think, especially Brazil. Sooner or later, Brazil will have to decide which side it is on in the new global geopolitical and geostrategic horizon that is underway. I understand the caution because, after all, the US recently interfered brutally in Brazil’s domestic politics. But on the other hand, only by defending the sovereignty of other countries will Brazil, or any other country, be able to effectively defend its own sovereignty when the imperial storm hits. In any case, it’s better to act collectively than individually. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) needs to be more active now that the Union of Latin American Nations (UNASUR) has disappeared.
[i] Pneumatóforo. Escritos políticos, 1981-2018. Coimbra: Almedina, 2018, p. 165-175.
[ii] May be consulted in:
Boaventura de Sousa Santos
A reflection on Venezuela
I am not, nor have I ever been, a staunch Chavista. Hugo Chavez was a benevolent political meteorite who shook the Latin American sub-continent and the world in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2013, shortly after Hugo Chavez’s death, I wrote a piece entitled “Hugo Chavez: the legacy and the challenges”. I identified some signs of authoritarianism and bureaucratization and ended the text with the following sentence: “Without external interference, I am sure that Venezuela would know how to find a non-violent and democratic solution. Unfortunately, what is happening is that all means are being used to turn the poor against Chavismo, the social base of the Bolivarian revolution and those who have benefited most from it. And, at the same time, to provoke a rupture in the Armed Forces and a consequent military coup to oust Maduro. Europe’s foreign policy (if it can be called that) could be a moderating force if it hadn’t lost its soul in the meantime.”[i] I have to admit that my fear has not been realized to date, although there has been no shortage of attempts to make it happen. I believe that the current moment is yet another such attempt. Hence the importance of reflecting on the clamor in the Western media about the possibility of fraud in the recent elections in Venezuela and the consensus on the right and left about the need to audit the results. This perplexes me greatly and forces me to reflect.
1. The Venezuelan electoral system has been unanimously considered one of the most secure and protected against fraud. It requires four stages of identification: registration on the electoral roll, electronic voting, paper ballot extraction, and the voter’s fingerprint. The numbers must match. Of course, no electoral system is completely immune to fraud, but when we compare it to the electoral systems of other countries (such as the US or Portugal), the Venezuelan system is more secure. Why is it so obvious to so many people that there may have been fraud?
2. The opposition had been announcing that it would only recognize the results if it won the elections. In this respect, it was following a practice that is becoming widespread among far-right forces running for election (Trump in 2020, Bolsonaro in 2022, Milei in 2023). This should call for some caution on the part of democratic forces, lest their insistence on auditing serve as a crutch for political forces that, supposedly in the name of democracy, want to destroy it.
3. Outside of Venezuela, the most vociferous forces in defense of Venezuelan democracy are far-right political forces that in their own countries have advocated or practiced coups d’état and electoral fraud. In Brazil, with the active collaboration of the US, Jair Bolsonaro and the political and military forces that supported him were the protagonists of the most clamorous electoral fraud of the last decade. They managed to disable and put in prison for more than 500 days the candidate who would certainly have won the elections, Lula da Silva; they easily manipulated the media and the courts; and the 2018 election was declared valid internationally without any reservations. This shows that the media-political clamor about the possibility of fraud and the need to verify the results is not based, contrary to what it seems, on a deep-rooted love of democracy, but rather on other reasons, which I’ll explain below.
4. The double standards go far beyond the far-right forces and the primitivism of their considerations. European countries, which pride themselves on being impeccable democracies, were almost unanimous in recognizing as the legitimate president of Venezuela a suit who had proclaimed himself president in a square in Caracas. I’m referring to Mr. Juan Guaidó, on 23 January 2019. How can it be explained that, in this case, no care was taken to verify the democratic processes? It’s all the more shocking when we compare this apparent negligence with the zeal of now, regarding an election that had more than 900 observers from almost 100 countries? Incidentally, in an aside that adds to the perplexity, one wonders why it is only in a few countries that it is so crucial to use external observers to give credibility to electoral processes. If the possibility of fraud always exists, the need for observers should be universal and supervised by the UN.
5. I don’t dispute the reasons for Maria Corina Machado’s disqualification (it is well known that she took part in several coup attempts against the Bolivarian government and even called for foreign military intervention), but the choice of her replacement, former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, is quite perplexing. There is something disturbingly caricatured about the Venezuelan opposition. First, it was Juan Guaidó; now it’s a gentleman who looked like he’d just left a nursing home for a leisure activity that happened to be a presidential candidacy. I only mention this because Edmundo Gonzalez’s hands may eventually be stained with blood. Between 1981 and 1983 Edmundo Gonzalez was the first secretary of the Venezuelan Embassy in El Salvador, whose ambassador was Leopoldo Castillo, known as Matacuras (priest killer). At the time, the Condor Plan for counter-insurgency, promoted by Ronald Reagan, was being implemented in that country with the aim of preventing the advance of the revolutionary forces of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). This plan included the execution of Operation Centaur, which involved the army and death squads and aimed to assassinate revolutionaries and, in particular, members of religious communities based on liberation theology. A total of 13,194 people were murdered, including Don Oscar Romero, now a saint in the Catholic Church, four Maryknoll nuns and five priests. According to CIA data declassified in 2009, Leopoldo Castillo appears to be co-responsible for the coordination and execution of Operation Centaur. Edmundo Gonzalez was the first secretary of the Venezuelan Embassy. The crimes committed are crimes against humanity and as such are imprescriptible.[ii]
Why all the clamor about possible electoral fraud?
The short answer to this question is this: Venezuela is the only country in Latin America where two fundamental resources are not controlled by the US: the armed forces and natural resources (the largest reserves of oil, rare earths, gold, iron, etc.). Throughout the 20th century, the US repeatedly intervened in Venezuela’s elections with the aim of guaranteeing its access to natural resources. They have always done so with the help of a very small number of oligarchic families, some of whom have controlled the country’s wealth since the 16th century and the days of the encomiendas. Maria Corina Machado belongs to one of these families. Her electoral program is very similar to Javier Milei’s and she has already pledged in an interview that, if she were president, she would move the Venezuelan Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It’s a far-right program that has been supported by the US and, lately, by the oligarch of oligarchs, Elon Musk.
Because it doesn’t control the two resources I mentioned, the US has used the two strategies at its disposal (in addition to electoral interference and support for the opposition): participation in coups d’état, which may or may not include assassination attempts on the leaders to be taken down; and economic sanctions. At the moment, Venezuela is being punished with 930 sanctions that have been imposed for almost two decades. The sanctions have caused the abrupt impoverishment of Venezuela and have been responsible for thousands of deaths due to the lack of essential life-saving medicines (for example, for a period, insulin). This abrupt impoverishment led to the suspension of many of the government’s redistributive policies and, ultimately, to emigration. More than seven million people.
There’s no doubt that a country with so many millions of citizens forced to emigrate can’t be doing well. And it’s understandable that many of these emigrants see the defeat of Nicolas Maduro as an end to the sanctions and their hope of returning. In this context, two thoughts come to mind. The first is that Maduro has liberalized the economy in recent years, adopting some measures that can hardly be considered socialist or even left-wing. Many deals are being signed with large US and European companies, in the oil sector and beyond. Today, the Venezuelan economy is one of the fastest-growing in Latin America, but obviously this comes after brutal impoverishment. How far this new (Chinese-inspired?) economic model can succeed is an open question.
The second thought is that, if we look at the international panorama of migration and refugees, Venezuela is the only case where the media attention is centered on the country from which the displaced people are leaving. In all other cases, attention is centered on the “receiving” countries (which often includes deportation). Once again, the reason seems to be this: the policy of destabilization and demonization of the Bolivarian government and the creation of a consensus to activate the third US weapon: the infamous regime change. In fact, I think that the social unrest currently underway is aimed at creating a Maidan Revolution ten years later. I’m referring to the social unrest in Ukraine in 2014 that led to the flight of the democratically elected president, Victor Yanukovych, and, shortly afterwards, to the election of Volodymyr Zelensky. The reason why a “color revolution” is unlikely to take place in Venezuela is that the US has no Venezuelan military trained at the School of the Americas, where so many coups have been forged. The Venezuelan Armed Forces have already recognized the election results.
But there will certainly be more attempts in the future, especially since Venezuela has three major allies: China, Russia and Iran, three enemies of the US. The first two are original members of the BRICS and the third will soon join them. This means that, although the discursive façade is about electoral fraud and democracy, what is at stake is the geopolitical turmoil that Maduro’s victory is causing. This should make the leaders of Latin American countries think, especially Brazil. Sooner or later, Brazil will have to decide which side it is on in the new global geopolitical and geostrategic horizon that is underway. I understand the caution because, after all, the US recently interfered brutally in Brazil’s domestic politics. But on the other hand, only by defending the sovereignty of other countries will Brazil, or any other country, be able to effectively defend its own sovereignty when the imperial storm hits. In any case, it’s better to act collectively than individually. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) needs to be more active now that the Union of Latin American Nations (UNASUR) has disappeared.
[i] Pneumatóforo. Escritos políticos, 1981-2018. Coimbra: Almedina, 2018, p. 165-175.
[ii] May be consulted in:
https://nlginternational.org/2024/07/national-lawyers-guild-report-election-monitoring-delegation-to-the-bolivarian-republic-of-venezuela/; https://www.elperiodista.cl/2024/07/vinculan-a-candidato-opositor-en-venezuela-con-asesinatos-de-religiosos-en-el-salvador/
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Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Boaventura de Sousa Santos is the emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. His most recent book is Decolonizing the University: The Challenge of Deep Cognitive Justice.
Venezuela: An Attempted Coup By Any Other Name
by Maria Paez Victor
August 2, 2024
Image by Planet Volumes.
Once again, as in 2002, Venezuela has been the victim of a combined media and diplomatic coup attempt, but this time with the added element of organized crime and a cyber-attack.
Millions of eligible voters cast their electronic ballots before the presence of more than 635 international witnesses including electoral experts of the United Nations, the African Union, and electoral staff of 65 countries. How many international witnesses are allowed for the USA or Canadian elections? None.
Nicolás Maduro was re-elected with 51.2% of votes (5,150,092 votes), and the far-right candidate Edmundo González lost with 44.2% of votes (4,445,978 votes). The other 8 opposition leaders received 4.6% of the total votes cast. This is the statistically irreversible results given out by the constitutional Electoral Authority (CNE) on election day, 28 July 2024, having examined and audited 80% of the votes. These results were audited 16 times.
However, the rest of the 20% votes have not yet (at the writing of this article) been released because of a massive cyber-attack. The elements of the electronic system that transmit the results to the central point was hacked over a hundred times in a most sophisticated manner that was traced to North Macedonia.
The Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, named as responsible for this cyber-attack: Lester Toledo, Leopoldo López, and M. Corina Machado. Furthermore, President Maduro implicated Elon Musk, considering him a far-right fanatic who has the technology to pull an attack like this and has many times denigrated Venezuela. It is alleged that Musk supported the supposed “humanitarian” invasion of Venezuela through Colombia in 2019. He famously said “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” Musk must desire Venezuela’s lithium, apart its oil and gold.
Ironically, in the USA there is no constitutional or other law that demands that election results be declared on Election Day. In fact, in that supposed beacon of democracy, for much of the 19th Century it took days if not weeks to the winner to be declared.”[1] And much more recently:
* In 2000, Bush won the presidency over Al Gore with only 537 votes; there was a delay of 37 days before the results were released and was ultimately decided by the US Supreme Court.
* In 2021, Biden won over Trump with 51.3% of votes, (almost exactly as Maduro has won now), Trump obtaining 46.8%. There was a delay of 4 days before the final results were given out and only certified by the Electoral College after 33 days. Trump launched 63 lawsuits contesting the results[2] and still insists they were bogus.
Yet today, like a pack of vicious hyenas, the fascist far right – and not so far right – nations and NGOs are howling for Venezuela to release the detailed results immediately. The implication being that there is some sort of fraud or hidden trick. They DEMAND that the Electoral Authority (CNE) release the remaining votes, which the world should know are not little pieces of paper in a cardboard box. In Venezuela the vote is done electronically, the paper trail is only an added security measure to show that someone has duly voted.
President Maduro has formally asked the Venezuelan Supreme Court to settle any discrepancy about the vote, just as George Bush asked of the US Supreme Court in 2020.
Many of us who analyze the Venezuelan situation predicted it earlier: the far right, fascist group led by M. Corina Machado and her puppet candidate in Edmundo Gonzalez, had no electoral intention. Clue: unlike other candidates from the opposition, they refused to sign the agreement among candidates to respect the results and reject any violence after the results came in. Because that is exactly what they planned. Even before the results were in Machado was telling her formidable social media networks that Gonzalez had overwhelmingly won the election.
We wondered why Machado insisted on travelling the country to campaign. Now the Attorney General has found out why: under the cover of campaigning, she was paying off bands of real criminals she grouped in what she called “comanditos’ (little commands). These were common criminals trained in Colombia, with the help of the Colombian narco ex-presidents of Alvaro Uribe and Duque, and gangs of organized crime, who were paid up to $150 a day to burst on to the scene the day after the elections. There was a clear plan with strategic targets laid out for every “comandito”. It was also discovered that a great number of them were trained terrorists who arrived in Venezuela under the cover of Venezuelans migrants who were returned by plane from the USA.
Images have been flashed these past few days around the world of individuals setting fires and burning tires who are portrayed invariably as “the people” rejecting the fraud of the elections. In fact, “the people”, whether Chavistas or opposers, peaceful people in the great majority, were snug in their homes, having nothing to do with this terrorism. What did these supposed freedom fighters do? They looted, burned and destroyed, stores, schools, clinic, food warehouses, plazas, electricity plants, PSUV headquarters, police stations, water plants, and destroyed statues.
They injured 77 members of the police and armed forces, killing one officer by a bullet to his neck, not to mention the many social leaders dragged out of their homes and assaulted. In each area they had lists of the social community leaders identified with Bolivarianism, attacked and set fire to their houses and physically beat them up, women included, threatening to kill them and anyone in the town that supported the government. The government has set a special fund to help these victims.
These criminals had a specific plan. They were trained, armed, and received part of their pay in drugs. The blood tests done on every one of those caught show the presence of drugs. In certain areas they combined with organized bands of narco-paramilitary. The overall plan was to knock out the electricity supply to 10 states, create chaos, attack and march to Miraflores (the main government house) and capture or kill the president and prepare the way for foreign intervention.
How do we know all this? Firstly, because the terrorists are being rounded up, alive, without killing any one of them and they are talking. The terrorists aren’t fighting for any ideology or democracy, they are craven cowards that assault defenseless people, but when caught, fall on their knees crying and telling everything they know to the authorities. And because today:
* There are security cameras everywhere, and it seems everybody has a phone camera to catch their horrible deeds.
* There is a real Attorney General, not a vile traitor as before.
* There are now anti-terrorist laws that were previously missing to enable such violence to be dealt with through the courts.
There is a great difference today from the street violence of 2015 y 2017, “guarimbas” images of which were flashed around the world to convey that Venezuela was in chaos and should be “intervened”. At that time, Venezuelans watched disgusted and astounded as the violent criminals were never arrested for assaults, arson and deaths. The then Attorney General, Luisa Ortega, who spent years destroying the institution, gave strict orders that these street criminals were not to be arrested because they were “exercising their democratic right”. It turned out she was a mercenary traitor piling up millions of dollars the CIA gave her and is now living in great luxury in the USA where she fled when her crimes were discovered.
Following these events the National Assembly passed modern anti-terrorist laws that now include these heinous crimes against the peace, which the Constitution did not have when it was first written in 1999. Now there will be no impunity; so far there are 1,062 arrested who will go to trial. They are confessing readily with practically no promptings. It is to the great credit of the Venezuelan police and military that they have not caught these terrorists by shooting them – as it might happen in other countries which will remain nameless. No bodies, no dead terrorists: all captured alive up to now.
What would the governments of the USA, Canada or Europe do if bands of armed people set fires, assaulted and shot officials and members of the public, and terrorised their towns and cities? For sure they would be caught in a heartbeat and could very well end up being shot on sight.
President Maduro has said: we have seen this film before. The Bolivarian government under Chávez and Maduro has had since 1999, had 31 elections, and always the extreme right opposition has yelled fraud. That is, they recognize the elections when they have gained places in the National Assembly, state governments and mayoralties. Very convenient: if they win, the elections are legitimate, if they lose, they are a fraud. This has happened over and over again but the international media never seem to pick up on this or do not want to.
We are in the presence of an attempt of the international fascist far right and the CIA to overthrow the government of Venezuela with a massive disinformation and denigration campaign to justify illegal sanctions and foreign intervention in the country.
The checkered past and crimes of Machado, poster girl of the far right, is never mentioned, her involvement in coups, her promotion of street violence in the past, her asking the USA for sanctions and military invasion against Venezuela, and right now, her collaboration with criminal gangs and narco-paramilitary groups are never mentioned. Her puppet, Edmundo González, was involved in the logistics and financing of the death squads in El Salvador’s civil war. Their hands are tainted with blood.
But this is another universe from the one in 2015 and 2017. Venezuela is strong and prepared. Its economy has diversified and grown, despite the sanctions. It no longer depends exclusively on the US oil market – the whole world wants its oil. Even the USA needs Venezuelan oil for its refineries in Louisiana and Texas to keep the price of gasoline down in a crucial presidential election year.
The spectre that arises for the for the West is that their chickens have come home to roost: after decades of denigrating and harming Venezuela with a vicious hybrid war, Venezuela has turned to the East for its friends and allies. Russia and China have stood by Venezuela and its electoral process; Turkey, Iran, India, OPEC, and soon the Non-Aligned nations will also rally to its side as it is made clear that the purpose of the far right was not to win an election but to provoke a coup. And the “piéce de resistance” is that the BRIC, considering Venezuela a strategic partner, is poised to welcome it as a full member. This will open many more opportunities for Venezuelan development than Europe, the USA and Canada have done and who have treated Venezuela so badly for so long.
Let us rejoice in the triumph of the Venezuelan people and may they live in peace, secure in their own sovereignty.
NOTES
1. CNN, “Why the delayed election results prove the system is adequately working”, 4 Nov. 2020 ↑
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election ↑
by Maria Paez Victor
August 2, 2024
Image by Planet Volumes.
“We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.
Elon Musk, 25 July 2020, Twitter
Once again, as in 2002, Venezuela has been the victim of a combined media and diplomatic coup attempt, but this time with the added element of organized crime and a cyber-attack.
Millions of eligible voters cast their electronic ballots before the presence of more than 635 international witnesses including electoral experts of the United Nations, the African Union, and electoral staff of 65 countries. How many international witnesses are allowed for the USA or Canadian elections? None.
Nicolás Maduro was re-elected with 51.2% of votes (5,150,092 votes), and the far-right candidate Edmundo González lost with 44.2% of votes (4,445,978 votes). The other 8 opposition leaders received 4.6% of the total votes cast. This is the statistically irreversible results given out by the constitutional Electoral Authority (CNE) on election day, 28 July 2024, having examined and audited 80% of the votes. These results were audited 16 times.
However, the rest of the 20% votes have not yet (at the writing of this article) been released because of a massive cyber-attack. The elements of the electronic system that transmit the results to the central point was hacked over a hundred times in a most sophisticated manner that was traced to North Macedonia.
The Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, named as responsible for this cyber-attack: Lester Toledo, Leopoldo López, and M. Corina Machado. Furthermore, President Maduro implicated Elon Musk, considering him a far-right fanatic who has the technology to pull an attack like this and has many times denigrated Venezuela. It is alleged that Musk supported the supposed “humanitarian” invasion of Venezuela through Colombia in 2019. He famously said “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” Musk must desire Venezuela’s lithium, apart its oil and gold.
Ironically, in the USA there is no constitutional or other law that demands that election results be declared on Election Day. In fact, in that supposed beacon of democracy, for much of the 19th Century it took days if not weeks to the winner to be declared.”[1] And much more recently:
* In 2000, Bush won the presidency over Al Gore with only 537 votes; there was a delay of 37 days before the results were released and was ultimately decided by the US Supreme Court.
* In 2021, Biden won over Trump with 51.3% of votes, (almost exactly as Maduro has won now), Trump obtaining 46.8%. There was a delay of 4 days before the final results were given out and only certified by the Electoral College after 33 days. Trump launched 63 lawsuits contesting the results[2] and still insists they were bogus.
Yet today, like a pack of vicious hyenas, the fascist far right – and not so far right – nations and NGOs are howling for Venezuela to release the detailed results immediately. The implication being that there is some sort of fraud or hidden trick. They DEMAND that the Electoral Authority (CNE) release the remaining votes, which the world should know are not little pieces of paper in a cardboard box. In Venezuela the vote is done electronically, the paper trail is only an added security measure to show that someone has duly voted.
President Maduro has formally asked the Venezuelan Supreme Court to settle any discrepancy about the vote, just as George Bush asked of the US Supreme Court in 2020.
Many of us who analyze the Venezuelan situation predicted it earlier: the far right, fascist group led by M. Corina Machado and her puppet candidate in Edmundo Gonzalez, had no electoral intention. Clue: unlike other candidates from the opposition, they refused to sign the agreement among candidates to respect the results and reject any violence after the results came in. Because that is exactly what they planned. Even before the results were in Machado was telling her formidable social media networks that Gonzalez had overwhelmingly won the election.
We wondered why Machado insisted on travelling the country to campaign. Now the Attorney General has found out why: under the cover of campaigning, she was paying off bands of real criminals she grouped in what she called “comanditos’ (little commands). These were common criminals trained in Colombia, with the help of the Colombian narco ex-presidents of Alvaro Uribe and Duque, and gangs of organized crime, who were paid up to $150 a day to burst on to the scene the day after the elections. There was a clear plan with strategic targets laid out for every “comandito”. It was also discovered that a great number of them were trained terrorists who arrived in Venezuela under the cover of Venezuelans migrants who were returned by plane from the USA.
Images have been flashed these past few days around the world of individuals setting fires and burning tires who are portrayed invariably as “the people” rejecting the fraud of the elections. In fact, “the people”, whether Chavistas or opposers, peaceful people in the great majority, were snug in their homes, having nothing to do with this terrorism. What did these supposed freedom fighters do? They looted, burned and destroyed, stores, schools, clinic, food warehouses, plazas, electricity plants, PSUV headquarters, police stations, water plants, and destroyed statues.
They injured 77 members of the police and armed forces, killing one officer by a bullet to his neck, not to mention the many social leaders dragged out of their homes and assaulted. In each area they had lists of the social community leaders identified with Bolivarianism, attacked and set fire to their houses and physically beat them up, women included, threatening to kill them and anyone in the town that supported the government. The government has set a special fund to help these victims.
These criminals had a specific plan. They were trained, armed, and received part of their pay in drugs. The blood tests done on every one of those caught show the presence of drugs. In certain areas they combined with organized bands of narco-paramilitary. The overall plan was to knock out the electricity supply to 10 states, create chaos, attack and march to Miraflores (the main government house) and capture or kill the president and prepare the way for foreign intervention.
How do we know all this? Firstly, because the terrorists are being rounded up, alive, without killing any one of them and they are talking. The terrorists aren’t fighting for any ideology or democracy, they are craven cowards that assault defenseless people, but when caught, fall on their knees crying and telling everything they know to the authorities. And because today:
* There are security cameras everywhere, and it seems everybody has a phone camera to catch their horrible deeds.
* There is a real Attorney General, not a vile traitor as before.
* There are now anti-terrorist laws that were previously missing to enable such violence to be dealt with through the courts.
There is a great difference today from the street violence of 2015 y 2017, “guarimbas” images of which were flashed around the world to convey that Venezuela was in chaos and should be “intervened”. At that time, Venezuelans watched disgusted and astounded as the violent criminals were never arrested for assaults, arson and deaths. The then Attorney General, Luisa Ortega, who spent years destroying the institution, gave strict orders that these street criminals were not to be arrested because they were “exercising their democratic right”. It turned out she was a mercenary traitor piling up millions of dollars the CIA gave her and is now living in great luxury in the USA where she fled when her crimes were discovered.
Following these events the National Assembly passed modern anti-terrorist laws that now include these heinous crimes against the peace, which the Constitution did not have when it was first written in 1999. Now there will be no impunity; so far there are 1,062 arrested who will go to trial. They are confessing readily with practically no promptings. It is to the great credit of the Venezuelan police and military that they have not caught these terrorists by shooting them – as it might happen in other countries which will remain nameless. No bodies, no dead terrorists: all captured alive up to now.
What would the governments of the USA, Canada or Europe do if bands of armed people set fires, assaulted and shot officials and members of the public, and terrorised their towns and cities? For sure they would be caught in a heartbeat and could very well end up being shot on sight.
President Maduro has said: we have seen this film before. The Bolivarian government under Chávez and Maduro has had since 1999, had 31 elections, and always the extreme right opposition has yelled fraud. That is, they recognize the elections when they have gained places in the National Assembly, state governments and mayoralties. Very convenient: if they win, the elections are legitimate, if they lose, they are a fraud. This has happened over and over again but the international media never seem to pick up on this or do not want to.
We are in the presence of an attempt of the international fascist far right and the CIA to overthrow the government of Venezuela with a massive disinformation and denigration campaign to justify illegal sanctions and foreign intervention in the country.
The checkered past and crimes of Machado, poster girl of the far right, is never mentioned, her involvement in coups, her promotion of street violence in the past, her asking the USA for sanctions and military invasion against Venezuela, and right now, her collaboration with criminal gangs and narco-paramilitary groups are never mentioned. Her puppet, Edmundo González, was involved in the logistics and financing of the death squads in El Salvador’s civil war. Their hands are tainted with blood.
But this is another universe from the one in 2015 and 2017. Venezuela is strong and prepared. Its economy has diversified and grown, despite the sanctions. It no longer depends exclusively on the US oil market – the whole world wants its oil. Even the USA needs Venezuelan oil for its refineries in Louisiana and Texas to keep the price of gasoline down in a crucial presidential election year.
The spectre that arises for the for the West is that their chickens have come home to roost: after decades of denigrating and harming Venezuela with a vicious hybrid war, Venezuela has turned to the East for its friends and allies. Russia and China have stood by Venezuela and its electoral process; Turkey, Iran, India, OPEC, and soon the Non-Aligned nations will also rally to its side as it is made clear that the purpose of the far right was not to win an election but to provoke a coup. And the “piéce de resistance” is that the BRIC, considering Venezuela a strategic partner, is poised to welcome it as a full member. This will open many more opportunities for Venezuelan development than Europe, the USA and Canada have done and who have treated Venezuela so badly for so long.
Let us rejoice in the triumph of the Venezuelan people and may they live in peace, secure in their own sovereignty.
NOTES
1. CNN, “Why the delayed election results prove the system is adequately working”, 4 Nov. 2020 ↑
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election ↑
An Attack on Venezuela’s Democracy
August 1, 2024
Source: Venezuela Solidarity Network
A massive cyberattack, a global disinformation campaign and armed gangs are key elements in an attempted coup in Venezuela following presidential elections on July 28. The results of those elections, in which 10 candidates competed, saw President Maduro win 51.2% of the vote against opposition leader Edmundo González’s 44.2%, with 80% of the vote counted. The remaining eight candidates combined for 4.6%, in a vote that has become controversial for all the wrong reasons. González and his far-right allies rejected the results and alleged fraud.
For months, the Venezuelan government has been denouncing the far-right’s strategy for these elections: use friendly pollsters to disseminate wildly inaccurate polls, favoring Gónzalez; denounce the elections before they were held; denounce the results before they were announced; and lead violent street protests similar to those of 2014 and 2017 (guarimbas).
As predicted, the far-right forced a narrative of fraud into social and traditional media, while armed gangs and paramilitary actors sowed terror in the days following the election, attacking public institutions, security forces and innocent bystanders. Chavismo responded with a massive rally in Caracas to support the electoral results and oppose the violence.
Although tensions remain, the government appears to have snuffed out the coup. The situation is complicated by the fact that Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (an independent branch of government solely responsible for elections) was hit by a massive cyberattack the night of the elections, that continues to affect its website as of July 31.
Venezuela’s Electoral Process and a Cyberattack
Anyone familiar with Venezuela’s electoral process would know to be skeptical about allegations of fraud in the vote count. This process, the same one lauded as the “best in the world” by Jimmy Carter twelve years ago, is renowned for its safety and transparency. This two-minute video by Venezuelanalysis is one of the best explainers of why fraud is nearly impossible.
The CNE is led by a council of five rectors; currently, three are aligned with the government, while two are aligned with the opposition. If there was widespread fraud, why have the opposition members of the CNE stayed silent?
Key to understanding the claims of fraud is that once polls close, the voting machines print out the local results (actas) before transmitting them to CNE headquarters for a complete digital tally. Copies of the actas are given to witnesses from any political party present at each precinct.
Prior to the election, eight candidates – including President Maduro – signed a pact with the CNE agreeing to respect the results. González refused to do so and his party said it would not abide by the CNE results, but rather would solely recognize their own actas. The only way to ensure that a picture or scan of an acta is real is to compare it to actas published by other political parties and the CNE’s localized results.
This is impeded by the cyberattack on the CNE. According to a CNE technician, the hack could not alter the vote count, but delayed the transmission of the results. This meant that the CNE published its first report on results later than expected, and delayed the publication of its actas, which in other elections appeared on its website within a day or so of the vote.
This delay was crucial in allowing the opposition to frame the elections as irregular and fraudulent. The New York Times published an analysis of the opposition’s alleged actas, in an effort to lend credence to their claims of fraud. However, at the moment there is no reason to believe those actas are real, and every reason to believe that the far-right opposition is lying about the results. They cried fraud in the 2004, 2013, 2017, 2018 and 2023 elections, without presenting credible evidence. No actual evidence has been presented to bolster their claims.
Disinformation Campaign
In the months prior to the elections, pollsters with links to the opposition claimed González had a huge lead. These pollsters have a history of bias in favor of the opposition. In the 2018 presidential elections, they were wrong by an average of 26 percentage points.
On election day, the opposition widely disseminated an exit poll by a U.S. funded firm with links to the CIA. Exit polls have been banned in Venezuela after they were used to destabilize the country following the 2004 referendum. This poll was cited by mainstream media, far-right operatives and political figures as “proof” that the CNE’s results were fraudulent. Note that a different exit poll by Hinterlaces, a firm seen as friendly to the Venezuelan government, came much closer to predicting the results.
As of July 31, the opposition claimed to have more than 81% of the actas, giving González a 67% to 30% victory over Maduro. They uploaded their alleged actas onto a slick website, further demonstrating that this was a coup long in the making. For its part, the pro Maduro coalition planned to release its actas on July 31.
The opposition figures fed a narrative of a landslide González victory and outright fraud committed by the Maduro government. This led to a social media campaign featuring the use of a major bot network and AI that amplified claims of fraud and engaged in making fake news go viral. Among those complicit in spreading disinformation were Elon Musk – whose own social media platform put disclaimers on several of his posts – and Argentine President Milei, who called for a coup in Venezuela.
The barrage of disinformation and fake news about the results set the stage for the next phase of the attempted coup: violence committed by fascistic paramilitary groups and armed gangs.
Violence and Armed Gangs
In the late hours of the 28th, opposition protesters were called to the streets by their far-right leaders. While some protests were peaceful, others were not; disinformation in social media disinformation painted a chaotic picture of Venezuela in which average citizens were being brutalized by security forces.
There are too many social media examples to choose from, but I will note two:A right-wing operative claimed a police officer pointed a gun at a woman and her child. Video of the incident shows him urging them to leave the area with his arms.
A man on the street wails for the death of his friend and blames police for his murder, as his friend lies on the ground next to him, “blood” on the street. Video of the incident then shows the man alive and well, seated behind his friend on a motorcycle; the “blood” remains on the street next to the front wheel.
Several great threads are documenting some of the more egregious examples, including the one at this link.
On the day after the election, Venezuela experienced violence as paramilitary groups and armed gangs burned buildings, sacked and looted a regional CNE headquarters, blocked roads, attacked police and military, beat up people who looked “chavista”, attempted to attack a hospital, burned a community radio station and school, tore down statues of Chávez and Indigenous leaders, attacked local community leaders, military installations and food distribution centers, among others.
It is unclear how many people were killed as a result of this wave of violence.
Capture gang members claim to have received $150 to participate in “Maria Corina Machado’s activities in Caracas” (roughly at minute 31:40 in the link), including claiming fraud on July 28, and take to the streets on July 29 to cause damage and disturbances, leading to a “bloodbath.” Note that prior to the elections Maduro was widely condemned in corporate media for suggesting there would be a bloodbath if the far-right attempted to seize power.
The Venezuelan government reports that some of the violent actors were caught with Captagon, a stimulant used by mercenaries and terrorists throughout the world to maintain focus.
Maduro made even more serious claims about the U.S. role in the attempted coup. In a meeting of the Council of State, he said the perpetrators of violence “entered [Venezuela] on planes we allowed the United States to bring migrants on. It was an operation of trickery in U.S. imperial diplomacy.” (As part of dialogue over the past year between the two countries, Venezuela allowed deportation flights from the U.S.)
President Maduro also noted that the violence was “financed by the United States and Colombian narcotrafficking.” Prior to the elections Colombian paramilitaries reported being approached by the far-right to carry out attacks in Venezuela. Moreover, last month opposition figure Carlos Prosperi said that right-wing operatives and politicians were getting up to $9,000 a month from funds stolen from the Venezuelan state by the U.S. government.
As of July 31, the violence has mostly ended but the disinformation campaign continues.
Why Maduro Won and the Far-Right Lost
Central to the idea of the disinformation campaign is the idea that Maduro could not possibly have won. A key element of this narrative has been the decades-long, systematic attempt to make chavistas invisible – to pretend that the biggest political force in the country simply does not exist.
Corporate media rarely shows us the massive demonstrations in support of the government prior to and after the elections. Western think tanks never analyze the depth of organization throughout the different layers of chavismo and the interactions between these layers that not only creates a formidable machine to get out the vote, but also to mobilize on the streets in moments of crisis (federal, state, municipal, political parties, communes and other expressions of people’s power).
This is one of the reasons that the opposition’s claim that Maduro only took 30% of the vote (3.2 million votes, per their figures) lacks credibility. In the 2018 presidential elections, Maduro won with 6.2 million votes. Since then, Venezuela has experienced: three and a half straight years of economic growth; inflation under control and at historically low levels; 96% of food consumed is now produced in the country; a huge boom in entrepreneurship; and an economy projected by the IMF to have among the highest growth in Latin America.
On top of that, social programs have been strengthened. The Great Housing Mission reached 5.1 million dignified public housing units delivered (assuming 3-4 people per household, that may be anywhere between 50-66% of the population). The local committees for supply and production (CLAP) continue to distribute discounted or free food to millions of families every month, which may well have prevented famine during the worst of U.S. sanctions.
The base of chavismo was energized and the PSUV itself has more than 5 million members. In fact, even the markets were betting on Maduro, as was Chevron, which inked another oil deal with the government in the run up to the election.
On the other side, the opposition ran a terrible campaign. Edmundo González was rarely on the campaign trail, and instead he was represented by his proxy Maria Corina Machado – the latest opposition figure to have Washington’s full blessing. Their plan to privatize everything from the oil industry to public housing did not resonate with a population deeply familiar with the neoliberal shock therapies of the 90s. Close ties to Argentina’s Milei and Israel, did not resonate amongst a population that is watching the economic disaster in Argentina and the genocide in Palestine.
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles – a two time presidential loser who continues to be a major player – characterized Gonzalez’s campaign as “the worst he’s ever seen.” Two opposition governors and nearly a dozen mayors flipped their support to Maduro in the days prior to the election. The aforementioned Prosperi, who actually participated in last year’s opposition primaries only to denounce them for widespread irregularities (primaries where Machado won a non-credible 92% of the vote), also flipped his support to Maduro. Why would opposition leaders do this if they believed a victory was within reach?
U.S. & International Response
The Maduro victory has been recognized by dozens of countries, including China, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Honduras, and Qatar, among others, as well as multilateral organizations such as OPEC and Alba (Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas). On the flip side, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Peru, among others, refused to recognize the elections. Peru – which is led by de facto dictator Dina Boluarte – went so far as to recognize González as the president (Guaidó 2.0, as Maduro called it).
Brasil, Colombia and – to an extent – Mexico, are playing a strategic role of “wait and see,” defending Venezuela’s sovereignty to greater (Mexico) and lesser (Colombia) degrees. They appear to be positioning themselves in such a way to try to influence the Biden administration to moderate its response.
It is not surprising that the chaos in the U.S. executive branch has led to differing statements from Biden, Harris and Secretary of State Blinken. The first to pronounce herself was Harris, who tweeted on Sunday that the U.S. “will continue to work toward a more democratic… future” for Venezuela, remarks widely interpreted as admitting the far-right had lost. Blinken then expressed “serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.” However, on July 30 Biden, following a conversation with Brazilian President Lula, called for the release of voting data, stopping short of endorsing the fraud narrative.
Possible Consequences of the Attempted Coup
This division within the U.S. government points at a possible reason for the attempted coup: the poisoning of relations between the U.S. and Venezuela. Over the past year, the United States engaged in dialogue with Venezuela and partially softened oil sanctions, in exchange for certain “electoral guarantees.” The coup attempt will make it difficult for the Biden administration to continue its policy of easing the pressure off Venezuela. It will also materially benefit Machado and her allies, who will keep receiving Venezuelan funds held in U.S. accounts to continue their regime change endeavors.
In Venezuela, there is confidence that CNE results will match the ballot receipts, confirming the integrity of the election. Criminal elements are being captured, and military forces have repeatedly expressed their support for the Constitution and elections.
The coup appears to be over, though it would be shameful if it leads to a hardening or prolonging of sanctions. The real “irregularity” is the decade-long economic war Venezuelans have endured. They voted under threat of their lives being turned upside down again, of their family members dying of preventable conditions or leaving as economic refugees. Despite the threats, they rejected the far-right candidate and voted for peace. Hawks in Washington will do all they can to make them pay for their vote.
A massive cyberattack, a global disinformation campaign and armed gangs are key elements in an attempted coup in Venezuela following presidential elections on July 28. The results of those elections, in which 10 candidates competed, saw President Maduro win 51.2% of the vote against opposition leader Edmundo González’s 44.2%, with 80% of the vote counted. The remaining eight candidates combined for 4.6%, in a vote that has become controversial for all the wrong reasons. González and his far-right allies rejected the results and alleged fraud.
For months, the Venezuelan government has been denouncing the far-right’s strategy for these elections: use friendly pollsters to disseminate wildly inaccurate polls, favoring Gónzalez; denounce the elections before they were held; denounce the results before they were announced; and lead violent street protests similar to those of 2014 and 2017 (guarimbas).
As predicted, the far-right forced a narrative of fraud into social and traditional media, while armed gangs and paramilitary actors sowed terror in the days following the election, attacking public institutions, security forces and innocent bystanders. Chavismo responded with a massive rally in Caracas to support the electoral results and oppose the violence.
Although tensions remain, the government appears to have snuffed out the coup. The situation is complicated by the fact that Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (an independent branch of government solely responsible for elections) was hit by a massive cyberattack the night of the elections, that continues to affect its website as of July 31.
Venezuela’s Electoral Process and a Cyberattack
Anyone familiar with Venezuela’s electoral process would know to be skeptical about allegations of fraud in the vote count. This process, the same one lauded as the “best in the world” by Jimmy Carter twelve years ago, is renowned for its safety and transparency. This two-minute video by Venezuelanalysis is one of the best explainers of why fraud is nearly impossible.
The CNE is led by a council of five rectors; currently, three are aligned with the government, while two are aligned with the opposition. If there was widespread fraud, why have the opposition members of the CNE stayed silent?
Key to understanding the claims of fraud is that once polls close, the voting machines print out the local results (actas) before transmitting them to CNE headquarters for a complete digital tally. Copies of the actas are given to witnesses from any political party present at each precinct.
Prior to the election, eight candidates – including President Maduro – signed a pact with the CNE agreeing to respect the results. González refused to do so and his party said it would not abide by the CNE results, but rather would solely recognize their own actas. The only way to ensure that a picture or scan of an acta is real is to compare it to actas published by other political parties and the CNE’s localized results.
This is impeded by the cyberattack on the CNE. According to a CNE technician, the hack could not alter the vote count, but delayed the transmission of the results. This meant that the CNE published its first report on results later than expected, and delayed the publication of its actas, which in other elections appeared on its website within a day or so of the vote.
This delay was crucial in allowing the opposition to frame the elections as irregular and fraudulent. The New York Times published an analysis of the opposition’s alleged actas, in an effort to lend credence to their claims of fraud. However, at the moment there is no reason to believe those actas are real, and every reason to believe that the far-right opposition is lying about the results. They cried fraud in the 2004, 2013, 2017, 2018 and 2023 elections, without presenting credible evidence. No actual evidence has been presented to bolster their claims.
Disinformation Campaign
In the months prior to the elections, pollsters with links to the opposition claimed González had a huge lead. These pollsters have a history of bias in favor of the opposition. In the 2018 presidential elections, they were wrong by an average of 26 percentage points.
On election day, the opposition widely disseminated an exit poll by a U.S. funded firm with links to the CIA. Exit polls have been banned in Venezuela after they were used to destabilize the country following the 2004 referendum. This poll was cited by mainstream media, far-right operatives and political figures as “proof” that the CNE’s results were fraudulent. Note that a different exit poll by Hinterlaces, a firm seen as friendly to the Venezuelan government, came much closer to predicting the results.
As of July 31, the opposition claimed to have more than 81% of the actas, giving González a 67% to 30% victory over Maduro. They uploaded their alleged actas onto a slick website, further demonstrating that this was a coup long in the making. For its part, the pro Maduro coalition planned to release its actas on July 31.
The opposition figures fed a narrative of a landslide González victory and outright fraud committed by the Maduro government. This led to a social media campaign featuring the use of a major bot network and AI that amplified claims of fraud and engaged in making fake news go viral. Among those complicit in spreading disinformation were Elon Musk – whose own social media platform put disclaimers on several of his posts – and Argentine President Milei, who called for a coup in Venezuela.
The barrage of disinformation and fake news about the results set the stage for the next phase of the attempted coup: violence committed by fascistic paramilitary groups and armed gangs.
Violence and Armed Gangs
In the late hours of the 28th, opposition protesters were called to the streets by their far-right leaders. While some protests were peaceful, others were not; disinformation in social media disinformation painted a chaotic picture of Venezuela in which average citizens were being brutalized by security forces.
There are too many social media examples to choose from, but I will note two:A right-wing operative claimed a police officer pointed a gun at a woman and her child. Video of the incident shows him urging them to leave the area with his arms.
A man on the street wails for the death of his friend and blames police for his murder, as his friend lies on the ground next to him, “blood” on the street. Video of the incident then shows the man alive and well, seated behind his friend on a motorcycle; the “blood” remains on the street next to the front wheel.
Several great threads are documenting some of the more egregious examples, including the one at this link.
On the day after the election, Venezuela experienced violence as paramilitary groups and armed gangs burned buildings, sacked and looted a regional CNE headquarters, blocked roads, attacked police and military, beat up people who looked “chavista”, attempted to attack a hospital, burned a community radio station and school, tore down statues of Chávez and Indigenous leaders, attacked local community leaders, military installations and food distribution centers, among others.
It is unclear how many people were killed as a result of this wave of violence.
Capture gang members claim to have received $150 to participate in “Maria Corina Machado’s activities in Caracas” (roughly at minute 31:40 in the link), including claiming fraud on July 28, and take to the streets on July 29 to cause damage and disturbances, leading to a “bloodbath.” Note that prior to the elections Maduro was widely condemned in corporate media for suggesting there would be a bloodbath if the far-right attempted to seize power.
The Venezuelan government reports that some of the violent actors were caught with Captagon, a stimulant used by mercenaries and terrorists throughout the world to maintain focus.
Maduro made even more serious claims about the U.S. role in the attempted coup. In a meeting of the Council of State, he said the perpetrators of violence “entered [Venezuela] on planes we allowed the United States to bring migrants on. It was an operation of trickery in U.S. imperial diplomacy.” (As part of dialogue over the past year between the two countries, Venezuela allowed deportation flights from the U.S.)
President Maduro also noted that the violence was “financed by the United States and Colombian narcotrafficking.” Prior to the elections Colombian paramilitaries reported being approached by the far-right to carry out attacks in Venezuela. Moreover, last month opposition figure Carlos Prosperi said that right-wing operatives and politicians were getting up to $9,000 a month from funds stolen from the Venezuelan state by the U.S. government.
As of July 31, the violence has mostly ended but the disinformation campaign continues.
Why Maduro Won and the Far-Right Lost
Central to the idea of the disinformation campaign is the idea that Maduro could not possibly have won. A key element of this narrative has been the decades-long, systematic attempt to make chavistas invisible – to pretend that the biggest political force in the country simply does not exist.
Corporate media rarely shows us the massive demonstrations in support of the government prior to and after the elections. Western think tanks never analyze the depth of organization throughout the different layers of chavismo and the interactions between these layers that not only creates a formidable machine to get out the vote, but also to mobilize on the streets in moments of crisis (federal, state, municipal, political parties, communes and other expressions of people’s power).
This is one of the reasons that the opposition’s claim that Maduro only took 30% of the vote (3.2 million votes, per their figures) lacks credibility. In the 2018 presidential elections, Maduro won with 6.2 million votes. Since then, Venezuela has experienced: three and a half straight years of economic growth; inflation under control and at historically low levels; 96% of food consumed is now produced in the country; a huge boom in entrepreneurship; and an economy projected by the IMF to have among the highest growth in Latin America.
On top of that, social programs have been strengthened. The Great Housing Mission reached 5.1 million dignified public housing units delivered (assuming 3-4 people per household, that may be anywhere between 50-66% of the population). The local committees for supply and production (CLAP) continue to distribute discounted or free food to millions of families every month, which may well have prevented famine during the worst of U.S. sanctions.
The base of chavismo was energized and the PSUV itself has more than 5 million members. In fact, even the markets were betting on Maduro, as was Chevron, which inked another oil deal with the government in the run up to the election.
On the other side, the opposition ran a terrible campaign. Edmundo González was rarely on the campaign trail, and instead he was represented by his proxy Maria Corina Machado – the latest opposition figure to have Washington’s full blessing. Their plan to privatize everything from the oil industry to public housing did not resonate with a population deeply familiar with the neoliberal shock therapies of the 90s. Close ties to Argentina’s Milei and Israel, did not resonate amongst a population that is watching the economic disaster in Argentina and the genocide in Palestine.
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles – a two time presidential loser who continues to be a major player – characterized Gonzalez’s campaign as “the worst he’s ever seen.” Two opposition governors and nearly a dozen mayors flipped their support to Maduro in the days prior to the election. The aforementioned Prosperi, who actually participated in last year’s opposition primaries only to denounce them for widespread irregularities (primaries where Machado won a non-credible 92% of the vote), also flipped his support to Maduro. Why would opposition leaders do this if they believed a victory was within reach?
U.S. & International Response
The Maduro victory has been recognized by dozens of countries, including China, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Honduras, and Qatar, among others, as well as multilateral organizations such as OPEC and Alba (Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas). On the flip side, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Peru, among others, refused to recognize the elections. Peru – which is led by de facto dictator Dina Boluarte – went so far as to recognize González as the president (Guaidó 2.0, as Maduro called it).
Brasil, Colombia and – to an extent – Mexico, are playing a strategic role of “wait and see,” defending Venezuela’s sovereignty to greater (Mexico) and lesser (Colombia) degrees. They appear to be positioning themselves in such a way to try to influence the Biden administration to moderate its response.
It is not surprising that the chaos in the U.S. executive branch has led to differing statements from Biden, Harris and Secretary of State Blinken. The first to pronounce herself was Harris, who tweeted on Sunday that the U.S. “will continue to work toward a more democratic… future” for Venezuela, remarks widely interpreted as admitting the far-right had lost. Blinken then expressed “serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.” However, on July 30 Biden, following a conversation with Brazilian President Lula, called for the release of voting data, stopping short of endorsing the fraud narrative.
Possible Consequences of the Attempted Coup
This division within the U.S. government points at a possible reason for the attempted coup: the poisoning of relations between the U.S. and Venezuela. Over the past year, the United States engaged in dialogue with Venezuela and partially softened oil sanctions, in exchange for certain “electoral guarantees.” The coup attempt will make it difficult for the Biden administration to continue its policy of easing the pressure off Venezuela. It will also materially benefit Machado and her allies, who will keep receiving Venezuelan funds held in U.S. accounts to continue their regime change endeavors.
In Venezuela, there is confidence that CNE results will match the ballot receipts, confirming the integrity of the election. Criminal elements are being captured, and military forces have repeatedly expressed their support for the Constitution and elections.
The coup appears to be over, though it would be shameful if it leads to a hardening or prolonging of sanctions. The real “irregularity” is the decade-long economic war Venezuelans have endured. They voted under threat of their lives being turned upside down again, of their family members dying of preventable conditions or leaving as economic refugees. Despite the threats, they rejected the far-right candidate and voted for peace. Hawks in Washington will do all they can to make them pay for their vote.
María Páez Victor, Ph.D. is a Venezuelan born sociologist living in Canada.
VENEZUELA
'According to the numbers of the Electoral institution, Maduro won with more than 51% of the vote'
Issued on: 03/08/2024 - 12:10
Video by:
Herminia FERNANDEZ
2024-08-03 11:34 'According to the numbers of the Electoral institution, Maduro won with more than 51% of the vote'
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