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 announcing results before the CNE – an exit poll pointing out the “triumph” of Maduro in the same proportions as Amoroso, the Comptroller General of Venezuela, would finally announce.
And all this, despite the fact that video after video showed the people celebrating, in each voting center, Edmundo’s forceful victory over Maduro by two or three to one. Confirmed, in addition, by the reliable exit polls that were made known. But no, Maduro won! What cynicism, what disrespect and contempt for the will of the people.
One of the most odious characteristics of ideologically inspired autocracies – such as the fascist one in Venezuela – is their arrogance and overbearing manner. Owners of an indisputable truth built from the ideology with which they justify their rise to power, they are impervious to all criticism. Believing to have discovered the mysteries of history by having led a “revolution,” they unfold an alleged moral superiority to make fun of everything that refutes their rhetoric.
In possession of the machinery of the State, they do not acknowledge the rights of anyone who does not join them, protected by the conviction that they are “right” and will advance the “good” by “revolutionary” power. And as they are the “revolution,” the defense of their interests – their privileges, immunity and the spoils they have taken – absolves them from any abuse executed for that purpose.
The transcendent ends involved make History the supreme judge. And they are its custodians. And the more power they accumulate, the more they need to take refuge in the tricks with which they justify the dismantling of the rule of law and the imposition of a despotic exercise in which, par excellence, reason will always be on their side. The anomie of the powerful.
The classical Greeks referred to similar postures of arrogance and absolute power as hubris, an excessive pride and dangerous overconfidence with respect to one’s own limitations, which pervert a person’s treatment of others and their environment. It is the arrogance that blinds dictators, because, drunk with power, they confuse the real possibilities of something happening with their particular pretensions. And they make mistakes, undermining their position of dominance. Subsumed in their ideological bubble, they lose the ability (or interest) to correct themselves. It is reality that must adapt to their designs. The reason of force above the force of reason.
Now the first reactions at the international level require Maduro to make a clear accounting. The people cannot resign themselves to such a crude swindle
At this early hour no one knows if the fascists will be able to get away with it. Let us hope not. Democratic leadership feels, at the moment, the enormous weight of the responsibility it must assume to win freedom. Now the first reactions at the international level require Maduro to make a clear accounting. It is difficult for the people to resign themselves to such a crude swindle.
What “legitimacy” did the Chavo-Maduristas win with such a vulgar fraud? Who do they think they are fooling? Was “peace and tranquility” achieved? Was the path paved to attract investments and generate employment? Can the surrounding countries trust that the migratory flow heading their way will not increase? Will the sanctions be lifted? Will the International Criminal Court and the UN Human Rights Council desist from their investigations in the face of these results? Will the door of a transitional justice, conditioned on the return to democracy, still be open?
I repeat, it is very difficult to know what is going to happen. But I am convinced that the farce they mounted clearly seems to be their suicide. History will NOT absolve them!
Note: This text has been published by the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional, which authorizes this newspaper to reproduce it.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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