Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro drives a bus while leaving the airport after arriving in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 17, 2015. Photo: AFP/file photo.
By María Páez Victor – Jan 15, 2026
President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, lawyer and congresswoman Cilia Flores, were violently kidnapped in a bloody coup that massacred all 40 of his presidential guards, and were flown to New York under bogus accusations of drug peddling. One hundred people were killed by the massive attack on an unsuspecting Venezuela, a nation that did not even receive a declaration of war from the US. The attack and kidnapping were a blatant violation of the UN Charter, the Geneva Convention, human rights protections, and the precept of the immunity of heads of state.
A nuclear-power nation disproportionately committed an act of war against a peaceful, unsuspecting nation without even a declaration of war as a warning. This attack killed 100 people and destroyed dwellings and public buildings such as medical depots, a library, schools, and even a university campus. The US used a powerful cyber weapon, previously unknown, that paralyzed all communication systems, the internet, and electricity. In an unparalleled act of imperial terrorism, US troops kidnapped an active head of state—and his wife.
While reporting such a deadly trashing of international law and common decency, the mainstream lackey press continues to put the adjectives “dictator” or “authoritarian” before President Maduro’s name, further stating that he “stole” the presidential election of 2024. It is as if that justified this state thuggery that has imperiled world peace. All of a sudden, jumping on the news bandwagon, many are writing articles as if they knew all about Venezuela, when before they had scarcely paid any attention to what was happening in that country. Let me be perfectly clear: Nicolás Maduro was duly, legitimately, and democratically elected president of all Venezuelans on July 28, 2024, with 51.2% of the vote, despite a carefully designed US conspiracy to delegitimize the Venezuelan electoral process.
The conspiracy against Venezuela has involved a widespread, ubiquitous campaign to portray its constitutional president as a dictator. Mainstream media just cannot stop placing adjectives such as “the dictator Maduro” or “the strongman Maduro” when reporting even the most innocuous items of news about the country. Even progressive analysts fall into this canard, and it will be front and center of the circus trial that President Maduro will have to stand. Therefore, it is imperative that the world know the solid evidence that shows Nicolás Maduro won the presidential elections of 2024 in a transparent and verified manner.
The 2024 presidential elections were witnessed by hundreds of international, independent witnesses in an atmosphere of order and calm, with all the constitutional, electoral, and procedural laws of Venezuela being followed. But the US mobilized its web of mendacious media, political allies, and an army of influencers and paid journalists on social media to cry foul even before the voting.
Yes, there was attempted fraud at the 2024 presidential elections, but not by Chavismo; it was by María Corina Machado and her lackeys, with full technical, economic, and political support of the CIA. There was a comprehensive, even impressive, sabotage campaign to discredit not just Maduro, but most importantly, the electoral system of Venezuela—perhaps the most advanced in the world—that has been so admired for its transparency and efficiency, and was lauded as such by Jimmy Carter (Alan McLeod, Orinoco Tribune, July 30, 2024).
Before the vote, there were constant terrorist attacks on the country’s electrical installations, food depots, and public facilities. Psychological warfare abounded, trying to instill all sorts of fears into the population, along with campaigns of lies and hatred against Chavistas and their families. Social media helped a great deal with this campaign of hatred and violence. The atmosphere was appalling.
World public opinion was manufactured by placing the idea that the opposition was sure to win by a great majority, so if Maduro was declared the winner, it would be due to fraud. This was a message repeated by media, social media, and right-wing pundits everywhere. It was hardly touched upon that María Corina Machado set up a completely unknown person, Edmundo González, as her stand-in because the highest courts of the land (not Maduro) had barred her from public office for plain, old-fashioned corruption. “The coup plot involved a massive and sustained, months-long, world corporate media campaign spewing an unusually homogenous message that president Maduro would be electorally defeated, quoting ‘polls’ that gave US-supported, extreme right-wing candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez (fielded by the Unitary Platform coalition, PUD), 80% of the vote” (Francisco Dominguez).
But the main weapon of misinformation was an enormous cyberattack on the highly computerized voting system, which paralyzed the process and delayed what had been for years a seamless transmission of vote data from polling stations to the central electoral authority, the CNE. This delay was used by the opposition as evidence of fraud. Venezuela obtained help with this situation from a company, Columbus, that verified the problems were due to a massive cyberattack that involved an astonishing 30 million attacks per minute for 20 hours on the system. The cyberattack also affected banks, government offices, digital payments, and public services. In total, 106 institutions were hacked as they tried to paralyze the state and create chaos. It is to the great credit of the Venezuelan electoral teams, faced with this unprecedented challenge, that chaos did not occur and the results were able to be released without too long a wait.
The other lethal weapon Machado and the CIA trotted out, which was highly effective, was a fake webpage that gave false “official” results to confuse the situation and was used by right-wing groups to insist there was fraud.
Nicolás Maduro, in view of all the confusion and lies, requested that the count be verified not just by the CNE but also by the Supreme Court of Venezuela. Is this what a dictator would do? The Court asked the opposition parties to present their evidence of fraud, but Machado’s party refused to attend. They had no evidence and simply continued their campaign of lies and rumors, which was eagerly picked up by a gullible media.
Perhaps the most salient evidence of President Maduro’s lack of dictatorial tendencies is how he has governed. He has decentralized power, or to be precise, devolved power to people’s organizations of communal councils and communes. These constitute an entire branch of power run by the active participation of citizens who are able to indicate their collective needs in local and district areas. In the hardest economic moments due to the illegal US sanctions, it has been the rural communal councils that have fed Venezuelans, and in the diversification of the economy, the communal councils and communes have stepped up all kinds of production. President Maduro has been the leader in bringing forward “the communal state,” the most important vehicle for public participation that defines the participatory democracy that the Venezuelan Constitution proclaims. Is this what a dictator would do—give status and power to people’s organizations?
Nicolás Maduro was born in a working-class district of Caracas and drove a bus for a living. He was a union man, went on to be a congressman, and was the minister of foreign affairs for Hugo Chávez. As a person, he is intelligent, kind, and respectful of all those around him, as well as a lover of music and dancing. He is a family man and a very Christian and spiritual person.
Cilia Flores, his wife, was born in a small town and went to Caracas, accompanied by her mother, to study law. With determination, she became Hugo Chávez’s lawyer when he was imprisoned and got him out. She is now an eminent lawyer, a member of Congress, and a foremost leader of women’s rights in the country. When the US goons came to drag her husband away, she fought and refused to budge, insisting that if they took him, they must take her too, because she would not be separated from her husband. Such is their mutual love for each other. Not for nothing, she prefers the title of “the First Combatant” over that of “First Lady.”
As a president, Nicolás Maduro was signaled by Hugo Chávez as the one to lead the country after his death, and Chávez urged the people to elect him. It has been Maduro’s onerous task to guide Venezuela through the most critical times in its modern history due to the criminal, illegal US sanctions that nearly brought the economy down.
As he was being marched off to jail as if he were a common criminal, he managed to send a message to his people with sign language saying: We will be victorious. This simple hand sign filled Venezuelans with hope and courage.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, a lifelong revolutionary and daughter of a journalist beaten to death by the CIA goons that ran the secret police during previous US-supported governments, is a highly educated lawyer with degrees from the University of London and the Sorbonne. She is a skilled negotiator and no pushover, determined to protect Venezuela’s sovereignty, get the constitutional president and first lady back, and at the same time, prevent another vile military attack. The latest poll (Hinterlaces) shows that eight out of every 10 Venezuelans approve of Rodríguez. And those who thought that Machado’s opposition had the majority in the country can now see the lie for what it is, as this supposed majority is nowhere to be seen celebrating the ouster of President Maduro. Instead, the Venezuelan streets and plazas have been inundated with thousands of people demanding the return of their president. Also in the Global South, multitudes of people have been out on the streets demanding his return.
President Maduro can, even from the ignominy of a New York jail cell as a prisoner of war, hold his head high because he has kept the faith with his beloved people, his mentor Chávez, his conscience, and his God. Throughout the Global South, Nicolás Maduro has become the symbol of resistance to US imperial crimes—just like Nelson Mandela.
MPV/OT
Maria Paez Victor
María Páez Victor, Ph.D. is a Venezuelan born sociologist living in Canada.
