Nicolas Maduro
received 5,823,728 votes or 67.7% and Henri Falcon received 1,820,552 votes or
21.2%.
The 7,644,280 voters
are reported as 42% of the population and from that we could assume that the
current population of Venezuela is 18 million, not 32 million. That means 14 million Venezuelans have
migrated to other countries as refugees to avoid starvation. I expect another 2
million will leave because of Maduro’s reelection. Inflation reached 18,000%.
Venezuela in 2018 –
China and Russia are backing Maduro, thinking their cash will allow the Maduro
government to play hardball on its defaulted $50 billion bond debt. Oil prices
are up, but Venezuelan oil production is down and is being ignored by the US
and other export customers.
The grievances listed
and reports of a rigged election by Falcon and others the day before the
election are listed in the article below:
Many fear dirty tricks will keep the
unpopular president in power, but the opposition is urging people not to
boycott Sunday’s vote, by John Otis in Caracas, 5/19/18
Venezuela’s
president Nicolás Maduro is seeking another’s term, despite leading the country
into an economic crisis.
'Maduro would beat Jesus':
Venezuelans lament rigged system as election looms
Venezuela election: Maduro 'ready for battle' as voters vow to flee if he wins Read more
Why is Venezuela in crisis? “It matters little whether this threat is real or perceived. Most people can’t afford to risk their paltry food rations to in order find out,” wrote the Caracas political blogger Emiliana Duarte. Maduro’s re-election pitch “pretty much comes down to ‘vote for me if you want food, starve if you want to make a point’”, she said.
Venezuela on the brink: a journey through a country in crisis. Read more. “Yes, Venezuelans want to vote. But we don’t want to legitimize the Maduro regime and the misery that he has brought to the country,” said Negal Morales, an opposition lawmaker. “To vote would be to take part in a farce.” Some critics contend that the boycott came about after the opposition was outmaneuvered by government negotiators.
Hunger Highway: desperate Venezuelans take hard road to Brazil. Read more.
Venezuela election: Maduro 'ready for battle' as voters vow to flee if he wins Read more
Why is Venezuela in crisis? “It matters little whether this threat is real or perceived. Most people can’t afford to risk their paltry food rations to in order find out,” wrote the Caracas political blogger Emiliana Duarte. Maduro’s re-election pitch “pretty much comes down to ‘vote for me if you want food, starve if you want to make a point’”, she said.
Venezuela on the brink: a journey through a country in crisis. Read more. “Yes, Venezuelans want to vote. But we don’t want to legitimize the Maduro regime and the misery that he has brought to the country,” said Negal Morales, an opposition lawmaker. “To vote would be to take part in a farce.” Some critics contend that the boycott came about after the opposition was outmaneuvered by government negotiators.
Hunger Highway: desperate Venezuelans take hard road to Brazil. Read more.
After denouncing Venezuela’s food shortages and hyperinflation in
a speech ahead of Sunday’s presidential election,
the opposition candidate, Henrí Falcón, sat in his campaign bus, sucking a
throat lozenge – and chewing over his predicament.
Falcón ought to be the favorite. He’s up against Nicolás Maduro, the deeply unpopular and increasingly authoritarian
president who is seeking another six-year term despite leading this oil-rich
nation into its worst economic crisis in decades. Yet Falcón is the underdog.
He’s resigned to the usual dirty tricks from the ruling
Socialist Party, including the use of state food hand-outs to lure hungry people into voting for
Maduro.
But what most infuriates him is friendly fire: Venezuela’s
largest opposition parties are denouncing Falcón as a stooge for participating
in an election they say will be a sham – and which they have vowed to boycott.
“This makes it a lot more complicated,” Falcón admits. “But we
are going to take risks and follow the democratic path. Now is not the time for
politicians to go into hiding.”
Falcón has been buoyed by polls that show him either ahead or
within striking distance of Maduro. He also points to research showing that
even on an unfair electoral playing field, it’s almost always better to
participate than to stand down.
A 2009 study by the Brookings Institution of more than 100
electoral boycotts – from Afghanistan to Iraq to Peru – found that their goal
of rendering elections illegitimate in the eyes of the world was rarely
achieved. Instead, they left the boycotting parties in an even weaker state.
Javier Corrales, a Venezuela expert at Amherst
College, says that Sunday’s election presents an extremely rare opportunity for
voters to remove an autocrat through peaceful means. Surrendering to Maduro, he
says, “is the biggest mistake I’ve seen the opposition make in a decade.”
Henrí Falcón, the Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate,
at a rally. Photograph: Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images
The leaders of the largest of the 20-some parties that make up
the opposition coalition claim that electoral conditions are so grossly
weighted in Maduro’s favor that voting on Sunday would be pointless.
Most electoral officials are Maduro loyalists who, in past
elections, have turned a blind eye to vote tampering and the last-minute
relocation of polling places in opposition strongholds.
The government controls most TV and radio stations which transmit a constant stream of pro-Maduro propaganda.
It is also fomenting the notion that the ballot is not secret and that people
who vote for the opposition will lose government jobs, public housing, and vital food handouts.
At a campaign rally in the western city of Barquisimeto, Maduro
put it this way: “The Fatherland protects you and gives you everything. And you
must give the Fatherland political power.”
But just to make sure, the government has banned the two most
popular opposition politicians – Leopoldo López who is under house arrest for inciting violence and Henrique Capriles who faces trumped-up corruption charges – from running.
Those allowed on the ballot are two lesser-known figures: Falcón
and televangelist Javier Bertucci, who is attracting big crowds by turning his
campaign events into makeshift soup kitchens.
Carlos González, an anti-government activist who heads a
Venezuelan business association, says the name on the ballot doesn’t matter:
“Jesus Christ could be the candidate and Maduro would still prevail because the
system is set up for him to win,” he says.
The opposition has taken this argument overseas, convincing the
United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries to denounce
the balloting as a sham.
In discussions over electoral conditions, the opposition drew a
line in the sand, demanding a neutral electoral tribunal, a postponement of the
balloting until October, and the presence of international observers. After
months of talks, the government conceded almost nothing.
According to one observer, that left the opposition feeling
obliged to save
face by making good on its threat to sit out the
election.
“Maduro wants people to abstain,” Francisco Rodríguez, Falcón’s
chief policy advisor, said. “He wants nobody to come out to vote because that’s
the only election he can win. And the opposition fell into that trap.”
However, unfair electoral conditions don’t always mean victory
for authoritarian rulers. In a 1988 plebiscite in Chile, voters were asked if they
approved of extending the regime of military dictator Augusto
Pinochet for
another eight years. In a surprise result, 56% voted “no” and Pinochet left
office two years later.
Looking back on that outcome, Genaro Arriagada, the national
director of Chile’s “no” campaign, once declared: “Even in a dictatorship, the
worst mistake is to not participate.”
With that in mind, Falcón has been barnstorming the country to
convince people to that their votes matter. A former governor of the western
state of Lara, Falcón was once a vocal supporter of the Bolivarian revolution
ushered in by the late Hugo
Chávez in
1999. But Falcón broke with Chávez in 2008 and has become a fierce critic of
Maduro. His blunt campaign slogan is ¡Se va! – Spanish for “He’s leaving”.
Speaking to a crowd in a working-class barrio in the industrial
city of Valencia, Falcón called Maduro “the president of hunger and misery”. He
pointed out that the average monthly salary is no longer enough to buy a carton
of eggs and outlined his plan to scrap the Bolívar, Venezuela’s badly devalued currency, and replace it with the
US dollar.
Last year the country’s economy shrank by more than 13%; hyperinflation is set to
hit 13,000% and
the prolonged crisis has driven some 5,000 Venezuelans to leave their country
every day, according to the UN.
Maduro has said that he is a victim of “economic warfare” waged
from Washington; his critics blame the cratering economy on mismanagement.
Meanwhile a steady stream of multinationals have withdrawn from
Venezuela saying that currency controls and shortages make it impossible to do
business in the country. This week, the breakfast cereal maker Kellogg’s
announced that it was pulling out because of the “economic and social
deterioration in the country.”
In the crowd at Valencia, one newfound Falcón supporter,
Maricarmen Vidal, said she used to work as a cleaning woman in the house of a
middle-class family in Valencia. But to escape the economic meltdown, the
family moved abroad and she was thrown out of work.
Now, she eeks out a living selling tiny bags of sugar and coffee
on a Valencia street corner. Vidal says about the only thing she knows about
Falcón is that he’s not Maduro – “but that’s enough.”
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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