CARACAS, Venezuela — Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro declared on Monday that the primary election held by the Venezuelan opposition on Sunday was a “fraud” and part of a “coup” plot against him.
Maduro also claimed that statistics on how many Venezuelans voted in the primary, which opposition leaders organized seeking a candidate to face off against Maduro in a hypothetical presidential election, were fake. He offered no evidence for his claims.
In response to the alleged “fraud,” Maduro vowed unspecific action to “defend the country with the laws and the constitution,” potentially hinting at arrests or other legal attacks against those organizing the primary. Agreeing to allow opposition parties to choose candidates for a presidential campaign as they wished was one of several conditions the United States, under leftist President Joe Biden, imposed on Maduro in exchange for sweeping sanctions relief announced last week.
Maduro described the primary election as the “chronicle of a mega fraud foretold,” referencing the title of a novel authored by leftist Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez in 1981. On his weekly television show Con Maduro Más (“With Maduro Plus”), the dictator warned he would respond to the alleged fraudulent election with “the truth.” While not directly threatening to arrest opposition members for attempting to stage a primary, he ominously claimed his regime would “defend the country with the laws and the constitution,” suggesting a law enforcement response to the primary.
Maduro himself has remained in power via a sham presidential election he held in May 2018 where only handpicked rivals were allowed to participate.
The Venezuelan establishment “opposition” held a self-organized primary election on Sunday to pick a candidate to compete against Maduro in the proposed 2024 “free and fair” presidential election. María Corina Machado, a former lawmaker and the leader of the center-right party Vente Venezuela, obtained 1.47 million votes that represent an overwhelming 92.56 percent of the votes cast, according to the latest preliminary results published by the National Primary Commission. The Commission is a non-government group established by the Venezuelan “opposition” to carry out all relevant proceedings pertaining to Sunday’s primary election. The primary did have the logistical support and voting center infrastructure that the regime-controlled National Electoral Center (CNE) has at its disposal.
Despite her overwhelming victory, Machado presently remains unable to participate in the 2024 “free and fair” presidential election, as the ruling socialist regime imposed a 15-year ban that prevents her from running for office until 2030. The ban was Machado’s punishment for having expressed her support for international sanctions on the Maduro regime.
The celebration of a “free and fair” election in 2024 has been an ongoing pursuit of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Both the Maduro regime and the “opposition” agreed during a meeting in Barbados last week to hold a “free and fair” presidential election sometime during the second half of 2024. It is widely expected that Maduro will seek “reelection” for a six-year term once his current illegitimate term ends in early 2025.
As a result of the agreement, whose contents Machado denounced as not providing certainty towards free and fair elections, the Biden Administration saw fit to reward the Maduro regime with the most generous sanctions relief package that the rogue socialist regime has so far received from the United States and President Joe Biden.
The relief includes a temporary six-month lifting of oil and gas sanctions that allows Maduro to once again profit from the sale of oil in U.S. and international markets. The relief also allows Maduro to receive foreign investment for Venezuela’s oil industry, in addition to other benefits such as sanctions relief for the nation’s gold industry and temporarily lifting a ban on trading certain Venezuelan sovereign bonds.
In return, Secretary Blinken has said the United States expects that the Maduro regime present a timeline before the end of November towards lifting the bans imposed on Machado and other individuals who want to run for president, as well as for the release of all wrongfully detained U.S. nationals and Venezuelan political prisoners.
The Maduro regime has dismissed Blinken’s demands and has repeatedly reiterated that it has no intention to allow banned candidates from running.
According to Maduro, between 550,000 and 700,000 Venezuelans participated in the primary process, less than half of the opposition’s claims. He did not show any proof that backs up the numbers he provided.
“I have been watching statements from different spokesmen of Venezuelan politics, videos of people denouncing the fraud, audios,” Maduro said. “These people have always disrespected their own followers.”
The socialist dictator continued by claiming that the primary election is part of a “plan” to stage a coup against him.
“They are trying to condition a fraud in Venezuela,” Maduro asserted. “‘Either you recognize the fraud or I sanction you, or I burn Venezuela.’”
“They are trying to mount a new move similar to the one [Pedro] Carmona led in the [2002] coup d’état, similar to the failed [former interim President Juan] Guaidó,” he continued. “Attention Venezuela: they are going to try to take advantage of the 2024 process to see if they can disrupt national life and plunge the country back into violence, in the guarimba [protests], in destabilization. To see if they can harm the country again. They come with only one discourse: intolerance, revenge,” he said.
Maduro asked his detractors to “not to let themselves be deceived, not to let themselves be manipulated, not to let themselves be led into an adventure of hatred, of revenge again.”
“Enough of the manipulators, enough of the [Venezuelan “opposition” politicians] Julio Borges, enough of the Leopoldo López, enough of the [Henry] Ramos Allup, enough of the [Henrique] Capriles [Radonski], enough of the Machado, enough of all of them,” Maduro said. “They are the ones who have brought evil to this country for 20 years and want to surrender the homeland. That is why they are all in cahoots – enough of guarimberos [protesters], of frauds, of liars, of extremists.”
During the show, Maduro’s wife and the nation’s “First Combatant” Cilia Flores echoed her husband’s fraud allegations without providing proof to substantiate her accusations.
“In the face of a fraud that was consummated yesterday, what I would say is that here are the institutions and the authorities,” Flores said. “Fraud is a crime. Well, let those responsible for the fraud answer to the authorities for the crime they committed yesterday, which is against the people.”
The term “First Combatant” is an ideological made-up title that the socialist regime came up with for Flores to elevate her beyond the mere status of a “capitalistic” First Lady.
Earlier on Monday, the vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and alleged drug kingpin Diosdado Cabello made similar accusations during the PSUV’s weekly Monday press conference, claiming, without providing proof, that there were cases of people that voted “up to 30 times.”
“Chronicle of an announced fraud, a fraud that is even a mockery for the 600,000 people who went to vote, it is a good number, but the whole country is witness to the number of centers where there was nobody at 11 a.m., 12 p.m., 3 or 4 p.m.,” Cabello said. “It is a media operation, they inflate the figures, they fall into lies, it is impossible.”
Both Maduro and Cabello made mention of the alleged irregularities claimed by “opposition” politician Carlos Prosperi. Prosperi, who was the primary election’s candidate for the “opposition” Democratic Action party (a member of the Socialist International) came in second place with roughly 4.45 percent of the votes.
The candidate, who has so far avoided congratulating Machado, issued a statement on Monday morning where he asserted the process had “irregularities.” An allegedly leaked video recorded at an unknown date that circulated on social media media shows Prosperi describing the primary as a “disaster” while claiming that he will not recognize the primary’s “biased” results. The Democratic Action party has distanced itself from Prosperi’s statements while accepting the primary’s results.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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