As the deadline expired yesterday for the Maduro government in Venezuela to show detailed poll-by-poll voting records, opposition candidate Edmundo González was recognized as president-elect of Venezuela by the governments of Argentina, the United States and Uruguay. (Peru already recognized him on Tuesday).
But on the streets of Caracas and other Venezuelan cities, there was no sign this week that the Maduro government was reconsidering its strategy of claiming victory and seeking to crush dissent through force.
On Friday, the opposition reported that its headquarters, El Bejucal in the Caracas district of Altamira, was raided and vandalized overnight by a group of six armed and hooded men wearing camouflage.
Arrests of volunteer poll workers continued across the country, as the government sought to prevent the opposition from uploading digitized receipts from individual polls that show the opposition with a margin of victory of more than two-to-one.
Venezuelan social media is full of videos of raids showing opposition volunteers being dragged from their homes. In some cases, angry crowds have attempted to prevent the arrests.
Venezuelans have also been posting videos of uniformed foreigners on the streets of Caracas, including Cubans and a soldier wearing the insignia of the Wagner Group, a notorious mercenary group linked to the Kremlin that has played a major role in wars in Ukraine and various parts of Africa.
Others have tracked flights arriving from Cuba, or photographed Russian aircraft landing in Caracas.
Well, yeah. Maduro knows what giving up power does to a dictator’s life expectancy.
Brazil has a long list of dictators that abandoned power and did just fine. As a sibling commented, so does Argentina. I can only remember Peru in South America that made a fuss about it… and then reversed course.
But holding to it when things escalate does usually end very badly.
Left wing dictators maybe. Pinochet did just fine after handing things over.
Well mussolini was the og right wing dictator and he didn’t have a fun end
Mussolini was the OG fascist. Certainly not any OG dictator.
Well he also like lost WW2…
And they won’t without bloodshed… Thinking that it can be done diplomatically is noble but I sincerely can’t see it
Sounds like another US coup attempt,
I don’t understand the people butt hurt by your comment. The US has tried to coup Venezuela multiple times john boltman admitted it on camera in an interview.
If you think the US ISNT trying a coup, then I have a bridge to sell you.
But you don’t get it, US government and that piece of human excrement John Bolton have got to be telling the truth this time!
(my apologies to human excrement for the unfair comparison)
So wait, after winning the election he doesn’t wanna roll over and let a US puppet rule instead? Surprised pikachu 😮
You have fair elections until someone you like wins. Then that guy stays there forever 🙃 good thing that the right wing never thought of that trick.
“Democracy is like a train, you ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you get off.” seems to be the motto of these online ‘leftists’.
So many neo-monarchists out there thinking that a benevolent dictatorship is better than a democracy, but benevolence is in the eye of the beholder, varies with time and none of those people ever consider how a malevolent dictatorship is worse than any democracy.
