We Venezuelans live in a permanent pre-apocalypse circumstance. Our history is always about to explode. Now it’s no different. A little before January 10, the day on which the change of government must constitutionally take place, María Corina Machado announces that she is abandoning the clandestinity and summons the people to the streets. The Government, for its part, fills those same streets with soldiers and armed police. Edmundo González Urrutia sends a message to the military, demanding loyalty as the new head of state, while Nicolás Maduro addresses the military, demanding that they repress any popular demonstration. At breakneck speed, all kinds of rumors and speculations are produced and distributed. In this film there are also gringos, Russians, Chinese, Iranians… Does this story really have an ending?
On March 23, 2013, a few days later, the then deputy Diosdado Cabello, in a public event, stated: “You should have prayed a lot for Chávez to stay alive, gentlemen of the opposition. Because Chávez was the retaining wall of many crazy ideas that sometimes occur to us.” A decade later, Chávez’s heirs are offering us one of their most strident “madnesses,” a coup d’état that they insist on disguising themselves as democracy. The result is as absurd as it is pathetic. This January 10, trying to keep his incredible show before the eyes of the world.
For almost six months, the majority of the planet – including a good part of its allies on the international left – has been waiting for Nicolás Maduro and his party to present evidence of their supposed electoral victory. They have never done it. Their response was savage and indiscriminate repression against the civilian population. But lying also has limits. Chutzpah is not an infinite resource. Probably, as on other occasions, the fraud could have been camouflaged amidst the classic diatribes of polarization, but in this election there were two determining factors that prevented this deception.
The first was the voters’ own decision. Not even in its worst hypotheses, did the ruling party imagine The second, the leadership of María Corina Machado, who on the one hand managed to deactivate the tricky equation of ideologies to come into harmony with the popular majority of the country and, on the other hand, carried out a perfect maneuver to unmask fraud. Saving and publishing the official voting records – copies of which are also held by the Government and all other parties with witnesses at the tables – have given Venezuelans an opportunity to TRUE. In a country bombarded with misinformation and lies, constantly, from those in power, the certainty of a common, unquestionable and evident truth offers a new sense of unity, a unique experience of power.
We all know what happened in the 28-J elections. If his swearing-in before the National Assembly is finally carried out this January 10, Nicolás Maduro will face his greatest acting challenge. He knows he didn’t win the election. All his allies also know that he didn’t win. And the representatives of the diplomatic corps, the foreign correspondents, the special guests, the generals and ministers, the officials, the bodyguards, the cleaning employees, the television viewers from any part of the world… not only do they know that he did not win, but they know that he also lost by beating, that almost 70% of the voters want him to shut up, to leave. If Nicolás Maduro’s vocal cords were independent and had modesty, they would probably commit suicide.
But it is very likely that the ruling party will insist on its plan and impose its farce and its president. It is, without a doubt, a “crazy idea.” In similar situations, Hugo Chávez reacted differently. His project was the same but he had a different political intelligence. Both in his attempted coup in 1992, and in the coup against him in 2002, as well as in the referendum to reform the Constitution in 2007, even with difficulties and resentments, Chávez recognized defeat and surrendered or relented. These responses, in the end, turned out to be effective, allowing him to return and move forward. His heirs have chosen to ignore an obvious result and organize a farce as solemn as it is absurd.
If the fraud is consolidated, we will be less of a country and more, formally, the property of one that—according to its interests—is using the nation as its farm, its mine, its company, its factory, its bank, its barracks, its prison. … It is a problematic scenario for the region (migration will continue and increase) and very uncomfortable for the international community in general: it reveals the failure of diplomacy and leads countries like Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to be accomplices of a supposed “government of the left” who is actually closer to Pinochet than to Salvador Allende.
The other scenario proposes the arrival of Edmundo González Urrutia to Venezuela to, in a sudden and surprising manner, assume the Presidency. The possibility that, in a sort of magical invasion, González Urrutia will suddenly appear in Venezuela and assume office is a tantalizing fantasy. Leaving aside the operational detail of the clandestine entry into a heavily militarized territory, the questions are the same: who is González Urrutia going to take possession of? Before an Assembly dominated by the ruling party? Before a justice system that has issued an arrest warrant against him? Even if the elected candidate managed to reach Venezuela, there is no institutional system willing to recognize him as president. Strictly speaking, there is no institutionality.
This scenario would be incomplete without the leadership of María Corina Machado, who, following her commitment to go “to the end,” is calling for popular protests. Both Machado and González Urrutia have sent messages to the middle and lower ranks of the military and the various police forces, urging them not to repress the protests and to take the side of the people and the Constitution. On July 29, after the announcement of Maduro’s victory, people took to the streets, there were impressive popular demonstrations. At that time, the opposition leadership did not accompany the spontaneous protests. Machado today tries to revive that collective exercise of indignation. Against it is the brutal repression unleashed by the State after the elections. Almost 2,000 political prisoners, including dozens of teenagers. In her favor is coherence and ethics, she has remained hidden and isolated these months, without leaving the country and without stopping fighting. His leadership is capable of summoning hope. His proposal is a great challenge to the official lie, a challenge that even questions the “normality” with which this presidential swearing-in is intended to be carried out. The naturalization of terror.
Anything can happen. In this story, love and cruelty, epic and ridiculousness, jokes and tragedy are mixed in an incredible way. In the midst of uncertainty, and although the ruling party insists on violence, the truth is that before, during and after January 10, the desperate desire of Venezuelans for change remains unbeatable. There are millions of us, inside and outside our territory, who want to stop being the victims of a State and once again be the citizens of a country.
