A man participates in a mock election in Caracas, Venezuela, on October 25, 2020. Photo: Matias Delacroix/AP.
By Maria Paez Victor – May 17, 2024
“Before they drop the bomb they drop the narrative.”
– Caitlin Johnson, journalist
The USA narrative goes like this:
“Maria Corina Machado has been unjustly barred from running for president. Her stand-in candidate is Edmundo Gonzalez, a calm, serious, rational, peaceful, wise alternative, an ex-diplomat who is more popular than Nicolás Maduro, and who will win the elections.
If he does not win, it means the elections are fraudulent and “humanitarian” intervention by the USA will have to be deployed to stop the street violence that will occur. Then Venezuela’s oil will pass into the safe hands of Exxon Mobil.”
And pigs will fly.
The reality is quite another thing.
The clear facts are that:
+ Nicolás Maduro is backed by eleven political organizations who voted for him in 14,000 voting stations during a nation- wide primaries selecting the Bolivarian/Chavista candidate.
+ 4+ million members of the governing party alone, PSUV, voted for his candidacy.
+ Of the 10 candidates for presidency on the ballot, 9 are in the opposition, and only one for the government (Nicolás Maduro).
+ The results of a March 2024 poll by Hinterlaces, indicated that 59% of Venezuelans believe that Nicolás Maduro will be re-elected; and,
+ 68% prefer that the present government continue in power, indicating that Venezuelans are not seeking a change in the political system.
+ The results of a 3 May 2024 poll by Encuesta Nacional Ideadatos, indicated that Nicolás Maduro is the choice of 52.7% of voters while Edmundo Gonzalez is the choice of only 18.7% of voters. [1]
Having failed miserably to establish a false Venezuelan president in the person of the larcenous Juan GuaidĂł, the White House now wants to install a false leader of the opposition, in the person of the traitorous Maria Corina Machado.
Despite being legally barred from running for public office 15 years ago because of proven corruption, Machado staged a bogus opposition “primary” in which she prevented other opposition candidates from running. Ballots were unaudited and destroyed making post-voting inspection impossible. Then Machado declared the absurdity that two million people voted for her. But truth did not matter. The aim was only to tell this falsehood to the gullible international media, who will print anything the USA candidate of the extreme right will tell them.
When Machado realized the Electoral Authorities (CNN) really could not constitutionally let her run, she chose a “stand-in”, one Edmundo Gonzalez, an utterly unknown who has never held a public position. He has always been a backer of the most extreme right wing. Recently, his credentials as a “diplomat” were shot to pieces by the airing of a conversation he held when political parties were obliged to reserve half their candidates to the National Assembly for women. The filthy language that came out of this “diplomat’s” mouth are unprintable, insulting not only to women, but as he said “What next?” will they be obliged to do this for “Indians”, “blacks”, “gays”? And those were not the words he used, but colloquial, highly insulting slang. From his own obscene mouth and prejudices, he has insulted a significant part of the voting population.
Gonzalez openly declared he has no plans to campaign personally (What for? He has the money and power of the USA behind him?) People aren’t sure if this is due to his elderly age, 74, or his sheer idleness. Maria Corina Machado is the one who is campaigning for him, carrying around a large poster of his face so people can recognize Edmundo Gonzalez on the ballot.
Machado is well practiced in electoral shenanigans, as she continues to attack ruthlessly other opposition parties and bumps them off local ridings. Some opposition candidates have even said their lives have been threatened. Machado has always, throughout her checkered career, advocated violence (she has been called Maria Violencia) to the point that she has incessantly asked for the US to invade her own country.[2]Â In fact, the violence has already started this week as a fire was set near the warehouses where the electoral machines are kept. This may well be a harbinger of what Machado and her followers are prepared to do. We have seen it before. In March 2020 more than 40,000 voting machines were burned and destroyed.
Other opposition candidates are, to put it mildly, livid against Machado and her goons. The most sensible person the opposition should have rallied round to is Manuel Rosales, who is already a governor of the key state of Zulia, an experienced politician, and no friend of Nicolas Maduro. But Machado’s ego could not stand it, and Washington probably thought he was too “democratic”. Machado played every dirty trick in the book against him. Rosales minced no words as to Machado’s intention: Â
“There are leaders who do not believe in the electoral route, who believe in magic, that one day the Marines are going to come to save Venezuela, who believe that by not voting we will be able to oust the government, or that by the way of violence we will overthrow them, which has always failed.”
The CIA must have a special team, at USA taxpayers’ expense, sitting around thinking how to subvert the presidential elections in Venezuela. You would think that Washington had no important problems to face, no serious threats to their hegemony, that they can invest so much time, effort and money in attacking the electoral process of a nation that poses no risk to USA citizens, their country  or security.
But that is the way of empire: all or nothing. Everyone must obey and pay homage to Washington and its corporations. And that is the error, the sin, the danger of Venezuela: even if it is a small country in relation to its northern neighbor, it has the temerity to want to be a free independent nation, without foreign intervention in its elections, and to be able to make decisions based on what is in their citizens’ interests, not that of outsiders. Venezuelans are not prepared to give up their sovereignty to oil corporations, or to the White House.
It is clear to anyone with eyes to see that Nicolás Maduro has been an excellent president, steering his country through thick and thin: through horrendous USA sanctions that have weakened the economy and currency, through a perilous pandemic, and has come out of all this with an economy that is now growing at an astonishing 5% per year.[3] This nation has built, in these last hard years, almost 5 million public housing units, and now produces 97% of all food consumed in the country.[4] These are not small achievements which, if they had been made by any other country, would have been held up to the world as stunning examples of true development. Instead, they are ignored, and Venezuela slandered by the international, prostituted, mainstream media.
So, is it any wonder that the bulk of Venezuelans are backing Nicolás Maduro for president, and doing so unreservedly and enthusiastically? Even the private sector is backing him, as the main Chamber of Commerce (Fedecamaras) speaks well of the government.
How the international media could think that Gonzalez can beat Nicolas Maduro’s advantage in less than two months, when he has practically no name recognition, is a mystery. But his electoral win is not in the subversive plans of the CIA. They harbor a cabal of Venezuelan counselors: criminals who are wanted by the Venezuelan Justice Department for crimes such as: corruption, grand larceny, murder, escaping from prison, insurrection, and treason: Guaido, L. Lopez, Vecchio, R. Ramirez, L. Ortega, among others. These are the real leaders of the Venezuelan extreme right, fascist, opposition parties, the ringleaders of this macabre circus that they are mounting with their star minion, Maria Corina Machado. The plan is not to gain power via the electoral route. They know they will lose and are banking on creating chaos and bloodshed when they do.
They will not be able to overturn a highly popular and successful government, despite the millions of dollars given to them by the empire, and despite the sabotages. The Venezuelan people have seen this before, and they are not amused, but, more importantly, they, their Armed Forces, their 4.5 million member militias, their multitudinous grassroots associations, in short, their organized population will face them down, and win, as before.
Notes.
[1] Diana Valido Cenuda, “Venezuela. La novela de la oposición venezolana de cara a las elecciones”Resumen Latinoamericano, 12 mayo 2024,
[2] “La incesante campaña de Maria Corina Machado por la intervención militar”, Mision Verdad, 22 abril 2024,
[3] “Crecimiento de Venezuela en primer cuatrimestre de 2024 supera proyeccion de FMI” TELESUR, 9 de mayo 2024,
[4] “Venezuela’s revolution Has Built 4.9 Million Homes and Aims for 2 m Million More”, Orinoco Tribune, 2 May 2024; “Venezuela Produces 97% of Food it Consumes”, Orinoco Tribune, 26 February 2024
Maria Paez Victor
MarĂa Páez Victor, Ph.D. is a Venezuelan born sociologist living in Canada.
