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?
