Nicolas Maduro is Deceiving the World while he Steals the Parliamentary Elections

In his quest to stay in power Nicolas Maduro has done everything, from repressing dissidents, incarcerating opposition leaders and student protesters, to even standing in front of the United Nations announcing possible violent acts from the Opposition “to alter the Parliamentary elections.”  

He has vowed to demonstrate his “vocation for a democratic and peaceful elections”, while in practice to Human Right Watch, uses the judicial system as a tool to penalize the Opposition. A case in point is the one of Political leader Leopoldo Lopez who was sentenced to 14 years in prison for leading peaceful protests against the regime. Seventy-eight others have also paid a huge price for protesting the regime, with torture and jail time.

Nicolas Maduro and his oppressive government, in another  move to maintain complete control of the electoral process, has prematurely retired 13 Supreme Court judges. The reason for this blatant disregard for the Venezuelan Democratic process is so he can replace those judges with those in favor of the regime and without the intervention of the Opposition. Maduro did the same a year ago, when 14 judges were replaced before of their scheduled retirement.

of their retirement.   At that time these judges were appointed bypassing any input from the opposition.

Maduro has also paralyzed the Opposition by banning them from running for parliamentary elections.  To top it all, Maduro has rejected foreign observers as was proposed by the the OAS, to observe the December electoral process in Venezuela. I will continue asking the same question:  Can a country where there is no transparency and the institutions of government are sequestered, have fair elections this December 6, 2015?

Can there be free and fair elections in Venezuela?

History has shown that elections in Venezuela for the past 16 years Venezuela have been tainted. Although some may say that there is a democracy because there are elections, most of them have not been fair.

On December 6, 2015, Venezuela will embark on the journey of trying once again to have transparent Parliamentary elections. The inability of the Maduro regime to conduct honest and transparent elections started in 2014 when Maduro “won” the presidential election against Henrique Capriles.  Ignoring the request of the opposition to recount the votes, Maduro “won” by a very narrow margin. Although Maduro agreed to re-count the votes, that never happened and Capriles lost the election

Prior to the 2014 Presidential elections, a survey conducted by the Venezuelan Institute for Data Analysis indicated that 45% all Venezuelans (including Chavistas) would have voted for Henrique Capriles. 39 % said they would have voted for Nicolas Maduro and 16 % were undecided.  We all know the outcome.

Since then, the Maduro regime with President of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, have repeatedly made undemocratic moves by paralyzing members of the Parliament. That is the case of Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado who had been fired from her Legislature post by Diosdado Cabello even though the people of Venezuela elected her. Other opposition leaders banned from running are Daniel Ceballo, former Mayor of San Cristobal Municipality, in Tachira State, and Vicencio “Enzo” Scarano, former mayor of the municipality of San Diego in Carabobo State.

The electoral corruption and violation of democratic principals didn’t start with Nicolas Maduro. According to Forensic Analysis of Venezuelan Elections, during Chávez there were a number of elections with questionable outcomes. A case in point is the 2004 Presidential Recall Referendum. According to Forensic Analysis, the reliability of the voters registered was questionable, and there were unusual “variations in the electoral roll which were decisive in winning the 50% majority in the 2004 Referendum.”

Going back to the new December 2015 Parliamentary elections, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has rejected the OAS proposal to take part in the election as an observer. In a country where there is no transparency and the institutions of government are sequestered, can we honestly believe that Venezuela will have fair and transparent elections?

Venezuela: From Guns to Grenades

The unleashing of criminal activities in Venezuela was a strategy that Hugo Chavez used allowing the so called “Colectivos”, a group of criminals on motorcycles paid by the Chavez regime to tantalize and terrorize the Venezuelan people in the name of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Chavez armed those criminals first with Automatic weapons and Machine guns. Although Chavez is no longer around, Maduro, his successor has continued this policy of doing nothing against crime in Venezuela. Today the criminals use grenades to commit their crimes against police and citizens alike.

The number of people blown up is mounting in Venezuela, a country that "in 2014 has over 25,000 deaths resulting from the unbridled delinquency" supported directly or indirectly by the government.

The US State Department issued following warnings for Americans traveling to Venezuela “Violent crime is a serious problem, and the capital city of Caracas has one of the highest per capita homicide rates in the world. Kidnappings, assaults, and robberies occur throughout the country; no areas are safe.”

According to a Venezuelan source, the increased use of grenades is due to the fact that the grenades are small, compact and easy to conceal. They are easier to hide that an AK-47, but they are just as destructive and so far they have claimed many lives.  In the past two years, Venezuela has had more death caused by grenades that in any Latin American country. The criminals are seeking to establish control over territories, and because of the police presence is either weak or non-existent, they are able to operate freely.

Today is easier to buy grenades than food in Venezuela. The government controls the purchase of food which forces people to be in very long lines. It has done very little, or nothing, to control the proliferation of guns and grenades in Venezuela, leaving the people in a state of panic. The outcome is clear: large bands of criminals. There are about 10 criminal groups operating in different parts of the country. The criminals are determined and prepared to fight against the escalating resistance and pressure that the citizens are putting on the country’s security forces to fight the kidnapping, extortion, and murder rings operating in the country.

What started as a Chavez/Maduro regime tactic to terrorize the Venezuelan citizens has backfired, creating an uncontrollable situation that not even the government is able to contain. This “”Bolivarian Revolution” has not only weaken the economy of Venezuela, dismantled the infrastructure, and created rampant unrest, has also created one of the most dangerous countries in the world.