domingo, 28 de junio de 2020

Maduro's advance towards his final blow

A thunderous silence smooths Maduro's advance towards his final blow

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By Leonardo Mindez

June 27, 2020

lmindez@infobae.com



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Andres Manuel López Obrador, Rafael Correa, Alberto Fernández and Lula Da Silva have remained silent as Nicolás Maduro advances towards a new electoral parody.

Andres Manuel López Obrador, Rafael Correa, Alberto Fernández and Lula Da Silva have remained silent as Nicolás Maduro advances towards a new electoral parody.

Venezuela is heading for a new leap into the void in that bottomless precipice in which it has been skidding for years and from which nothing and nobody seems to be able to rescue it.

The last egg of the snake has just been fertilized before the indifference of the regional leaders who still maintain some harmony with Nicolás Maduro.

Let us leave aside for a moment the daily chapters of the economic and social catastrophe in which the Bolivarian experiment has derived, with its more than 5 million Venezuelans in exile and 80% of those who still remain in the country mired in poverty and the daily struggle for subsistence. Even in a continent accustomed to constant ups and downs, the tragedy of the Venezuelan landslide has no record. The latest image of the disaster is the long lines at gas stations to get a few drops of the imported emergency fuel from Iran, in the face of a shortage in a country that became the second largest oil producer in the world and where gasoline was always much cheaper than water.

This drama would be more tolerable, by the way, if the institutions of a republic worked in Venezuela, if civil liberties had not been violated and there were, to this day, 424 political prisoners, according to the count carried by the Venezuelan Penal Forum. If a majority of Venezuelans had chosen Maduro in free and democratic elections and political parties could function freely and compete on equal terms in the next elections, there would be a light of hope at the end of the tunnel. But none of this happened long ago in the land of Simón Bolívar.

In order not to go back to the long history of the gradual degradation of civil liberties under the governments of Hugo Chávez and ignoring the dark election in which his least lucid heir retained power for just over a percentage point (according to official scrutiny ) in 2013, let's just remember that two years ago Maduro was "re-elected" while the most recognized opposition leaders were banned, imprisoned or exiled, the main political parties were forced to defect from the elections after imposing absurd requirements to register and with prohibited entry for the most prestigious international electoral observers. Even under these conditions, less than 30% of Venezuelans would have given their support to Maduro on May 20, 2018, according to official scrutiny.

Not surprisingly, those elections were not recognized by the vast majority of Western democracies. In January 2019, when Nicolás - as they call him on the streets of Caracas - wanted to assume his second term sustained by the result of that electoral parody, the break was inevitable. Following the provisions of the Venezuelan Constitution, the National Assembly appointed its leader, Juan Guiadó, as interim president, in charge of normalizing the institutional functioning and calling new democratic elections. Since then, Venezuela remains in the limbo of a country split in two. With an interim President, recognized by more than 60 nations - including almost all of the American continent, the European Union and Japan - but with no real capacity for action. And a de facto ruler clinging to his armchair in the Miraflores Palace with the backing of the Armed Forces, ideological support on the continent of Cuba and Nicaragua, and a last economic supporter of Russia, China, and Iran who dodge international sanctions as best they can. that the Chavista regime is accumulating.

Indira Alfonzo, the new president of the National Electoral Council appointed by the Chavista Court, was sanctioned by the Government of Canada for having facilitated, along with other officials, the fraudulent re-election of Maduro in 2018. (REUTERS / Manaure Quintero)

Indira Alfonzo, the new president of the National Electoral Council appointed by the Chavista Court, was sanctioned by the Government of Canada for having facilitated, along with other officials, the fraudulent re-election of Maduro in 2018. (REUTERS / Manaure Quintero)

Maduro learned to extract juice from the global geopolitical rift. Donald Trump, Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping can pull and loosen that rope. Nicolás, no. You need to extreme the bipolar dispute to use the enemy powers as rhetorical justification for their misfortunes and seduce friends as a sweat

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