Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Photo: Peter Foley/UPI/file photo.
By Nino Pagliccia – Aug 9, 2024
In most countries, elections come and go. Not in Venezuela. Almost immediately after the first announcement in the early hours of July 29 by the National Electoral Council (CNE) that Nicolas Maduro’s lead in the votes could not be overcome by Edmundo Gonzalez with about 80% of votes counted, the ultra-right-wing opposition started claiming that there was fraud.
Predictably violent street riots (guarimbas) started in Caracas and other Venezuelan regions, which have now subsided after hundreds of rioters have been apprehended who claimed to have been paid $150 to create chaos. They surely did cause deaths, injured people and property damage. But perhaps most damage has come in the form of a cyberattack that considerably slowed down the transmission of the election results.
When all these violent events are put together the conclusion can only be that this was a planned “shock-and-awe” US-supported, extreme-right attempted coup. The intention being to overturn the fact that Nicolas Maduro has won the re-election as president of Venezuela fairly and legitimately in a democratic process. Political analyst Leonardo Flores wrote a detailed account of these events that he correctly titled “An Attack on Venezuela’s Democracy”.
The US government has been an obvious participant in the attempted coup by providing the (illegally interventionist) “international” narrative in support of its chosen candidate Edmundo Gonzalez through its State Department. Early on it questioned the majority votes for Maduro stating, “the processing of those votes and the announcement of results by the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) were deeply flawed, yielding an announced outcome that does not represent the will of the Venezuelan people.” For all intents and purposes this could have been a coded message to initiate the guarimbas.
Without an ounce of evidence, this kind of US intervention, when the competitive nature of presidential elections already has people’s tension at its highest, is uncalled for unless it was meant to be strategically timed to escalate the tension, as it apparently did. A Response to the State Department’s Escalation Against Venezuela immediately demolished the narrative of “flawed” election and concluded: “The Venezuelan people have had enough threats from the State Department. They have withstood ten years of economic warfare, multiple coup attempts, violence and sabotage and they will withstand this latest maneuver. The last thing Venezuelans want is a civil war, no matter how desperate the United States is to cause one.”
However, the US government is still “desperate” and, as the mythical dog that will not let go of the bone, continues to hang on to its intention of regime change in Venezuela. On August 7, the US State Department issued yet another press release titled “Secretary Blinken’s Call with UN Secretary General Guterres.”
The readout begins as follows: “Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke today with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The Secretary and the Secretary-General expressed their readiness to support an inclusive, Venezuelan-led process toward the re-establishment of democratic norms, in coordination with our international partners.”
It is highly probable that Secretary Blinken initiated the call in order to pressure Secretary-General Guterres to agree with the US position on Venezuela. At the time of writing there is no corresponding statement by Guterres. But the false appearance that both Blinken and Guterres agree on the joint action to take is achieved. That is, it is not only the US political will but also Guterres’ as well as an undetermined number of international partners. In one stroke Blinken has magnified his wish as that of a wider (minority) group of supporters. How can this be a “Venezuelan-led process”? Apparently, it is to be led only by Venezuelans (albeit traitors) Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez, whose track record has been revealed to be highly questionable.
Gonzalez is mentioned in the next sentence, “The Secretary noted that Edmundo González Urrutia received the most votes on July 28, adding that the voting records provided overwhelming evidence Gonzalez defeated Maduro.”
In effect, Blinken is telling Guterres what the Secretary-General must believe. But this is pure conjecture and wishful thinking. Only a fool would accept as “overwhelming evidence” the number of votes that a candidate (a loser one at that) claims to have received. The President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, has already publicly and convincingly debunked the voting records that the opposition has partially published on their website.
Further, if Blinken states as a fact that Gonzalez defeated Maduro, how would any other outcome, dialogue, or democratic process take place? The statement is meant to create a false narrative of fraud on the premise that many pro-US people would blindly believe it.
PSUV Leader Diosdado Cabello: We Have Submitted All Documents to the Supreme Court
The US unproven claim of overwhelming evidence of the Venezuelan far-right opposition electoral victory is a sign of desperation.
The readout continues, “The Secretary and Secretary-General expressed concerns for the safety and well-being of opposition leaders following the election, and condemned the political violence and repression, indiscriminate arrests, and violation of due process.”
Any act of violence is of concern but the violence has so far originated from the extreme far-right groups that Blinken is inciting and concerns should be for those who are killed or hurt by those violent groups. Opposition leaders should only worry when they break the law. The Maduro government has been transparent about that and the Venezuelan courts are, in fact, investigating if any laws have been broken. Again, a false narrative of repression and indiscriminate arrests in Venezuela is being created. No such violation of due process is occurring in Venezuela.
Perhaps the most outrageous sentences in Blinken’s press release are in reference to the “re-establishment of democratic norms” at the beginning, and once more at the end, “peaceful transition to democratic norms.”
The implication that there are no democratic norms in Venezuela is appalling. Venezuela has one of the most progressive and solid Constitutions, and this Constitution is the pride of the country. We can condone US ignorance on the matter, but Venezuelans should know better. The Venezuelan government strictly abides by the law to the highest degree.
In the present case of presidential elections, it is quite evident that it is the far-right opposition that is violating the Constitution by disregarding the National Electoral Council (CNE) as the constitutionally established institution that governs the electoral process in the country.
Article 292 of the Venezuelan Constitution reads: “The Electoral Power is exercised by the National Electoral Council as the governing body; and the National Electoral Board, the Civil Registry and Electoral Commission, and the Political Participation and Financing Commission are subordinate bodies to it, with the organization and operation established by the respective organic law.”
All 10 presidential candidates, including Edmundo Gonzalez, recognized the authority of the CNE when they registered as candidates. After the election, Edmundo Gonzalez is the only candidate to crassly ignore the CNE by disavowing its authority and presenting its acts as proof of his electoral victory.
But Gonzalez is not only ignoring the authority of the CNE. He acts in contempt ignoring the injunction to appear in the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) following President Nicolás Maduro’s filing of an electoral review appeal with the intention to dispel any doubts about the election results. This is yet another established democratic norm that Gonzalez ignores and that the other nine candidates recognize.
The US government could not care less about democratic norms when its largest prize in this game is the extensive oil resources of Venezuela that will be available for plundering as soon as the Bolivarian Revolution is defeated by hook or by crook.
NP/OT
Nino Pagliccia
Nino Pagliccia is a Venezuelan-Canadian statistician who writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. Nino Pagliccia has managed collaborative projects with Cuban partners in the University of British Columbia’s Global Health Research Program. He is the editor of "Cuba Solidarity in Canada—Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations" (2014). He has been the vice-president of the Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association in Vancouver and founding co-chair of the Canadian Network on Cuba. He has led groups doing volunteer work in Cuba for over 12 years.
