At this early hour no one knows if the fascists will be able to get away with it. Let us hope not.
Humberto García Larralde (El Nacional reprinted in 14ymedio), Caracas, 30 July 2024 — Who in their right mind would believe that the person who devastated the country, ruined its economy, destroyed public services, caused the migration of a quarter of the population, ended the possibility that the majority could enjoy dignified livelihoods, repressed and mocked people with promises that he never fulfilled could win free elections? How can we believe that the Venezuelan people, after so much suffering, have rewarded at the polls the worst government that the country has known in its history?
The fascists never asked themselves these questions because, for them, they never made sense. As an expression of the best interests of the people – the “revolutionaries” – the election could only confirm their candidate. The people can vote, yes, but not for someone else! For months they have given themselves the task of committing all the abuse and crimes they could think of, disqualifying candidates, inventing conspiracies to arrest opposition figures, harassing activists, hindering, in any case, popular mobilizations, preventing the arrival of international observers, hogging the media and lying, lying, lying. But far from intimidating the people’s desire for change, they exacerbated it. Aware that they were going to be definitively defeated, they decided, then, to commit fraud.
Aware that they were going to be definitively defeated, they decided, then, to commit fraud
And they set up the farce. First, they would not give the opposition witnesses copies of the ballot counts in those centers where they could get away with it. Then they would prohibit Delsa Solórzano, Vice President of the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission, from entering the room of the CNE where the votes were being tabulated. Before, in the hours when the vote was still going on, they would record Jorge Rodríguez and Diosdado Cabello, smiling, congratulating the “people” for the vote, at the same time that Oscar Schémel was posting on his site (Hinterlaces) – despite the alleged prohibition of ann
