Venezuelans Topple Statues of Hugo Chavez in Nationwide Anti-Socialist Protests
AP Photo/Jacinto Oliveros
Venezuelans began destroying statues of late socialist dictator Hugo Chávez on Sunday and Monday as part of larger protests against the regime of current socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro “won” a fraudulent election on Sunday for a six-year term as “president” in which the one opposition candidate, Edmundo González, has denounced having evidence that shows him winning the election by a landslide.
Protests erupted in Venezuela on Monday in the wake of the National Electoral Center (CNE) proclaiming Maduro the “winner.” The regime’s repression of the protesters has reportedly left four dead and dozens of injured and detained as of Tuesday morning.
The Maduro regime made a significant effort to ensure that Sunday’s sham election was neither free nor fair, banning the opposition’s frontrunner María Corina Machado from the ballot and engaging in a repression campaign that led to the unjust arrest of dozens of dissidents.
Sunday’s ballot featured Maduro — who appeared 13 times on it — a varied assortment of “opposition” handpicked rivals, and 74-year-old former diplomat González, the only opposition candidate that the socialist regime allowed to run.
The Maduro regime chose to hold the election on July 28 as it marked the 70th birthday of Hugo Chávez, who died of an undisclosed form of cancer on March 5, 2013. Weeks before dying, Chávez announced on December 8, 2012 — his last public appearance — that he had chosen Maduro to be his successor to lead his authoritarian socialist regime upon his death.
After Chávez’s death, the Maduro regime posthumously granted the late dictator the title of “Supreme and Eternal Commander of the Revolution” and often avoids mentioning that he died — but rather, that he was “sown” into the soil or “stepped into immortality” instead.
The Maduro regime also marks several Chávez-related dates such as his birthday and death day as pseudo-holidays. Other examples include December 8, during which the ruling socialists mark the “Day of Loyalty and Love to Chávez” to commemorate his “order” to have Maduro be his successor, or February 4, which marks Chávez’s failed coup attempt in 1992 against the government of Carlos Andres Pérez. The military headquarters that Chávez fled to after his coup failed now serves as his mausoleum.
Venezuelan electoral authorities, which directly serve the Maduro regime, claimed that Maduro “won” Sunday’s sham election after allegedly obtaining 51 percent of the votes against González’s 44 percent. The Venezuelan opposition has contested the results, claiming that it can prove Maduro stole Sunday’s sham election and that González is the actual winner after obtaining an overwhelming majority of the votes.
The events prompted Venezuelan citizens to flock to the street to protest against the Maduro regime, leading to statues of Chávez being toppled, beheaded, burned, and destroyed across several states. After being toppled, some of the statues have been dragged through the streets by the protesters.
The announced “results” of Sunday’s sham election have been questioned by several countries, including the United States, which have called for a transparent recount of the votes. Other countries such as Argentina and Chile have not recognized Maduro’s victory as legitimate. Maduro has only received congratulations from allied regimes including Cuba, China, Russia, Iran, Nicaragua, and Bolivia at press time.
The Venezuelan authorities officially certified Maduro as the “winner” on Monday afternoon in an expedited ceremony and without having first publicly released any finalized results. Venezuela’s electoral authorities have not publicly released the election’s “results” at press time.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado held a press conference on Monday afternoon accompanied by opposition candidate Edmundo González. Machado announced that the opposition is in possession of 73 percent of the signed tallies directly collected from voting stations across the country that prove Maduro lost against González.
The results, according to Machado, show that González obtained 6.27 million votes while Maduro only obtained 2.25 million votes.
“We have 73.20 percent of the tallies and, with this result, our president-elect is Edmundo González Urrutia,” Machado said.
Machado announced that the collected voting tallies have been digitized and published on a website, where Venezuelans can directly check the results of their voting center. Electoral witnesses in possession of a physical copy of their voting table’s tally can also compare it with the digitized version.
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Ciudadanos en redes sociales confirman que las actas presentadas en el sitio web anunciado por María Corina Machado y Edmundo González coinciden con los resultados de sus mesas electorales.
La OEA acaba de urgir al régimen de Nicolás Maduro, a aceptar los… pic.twitter.com/2ugVO80RmV
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Both the Maduro regime and the Venezuelan opposition have called for rallies in the capital city of Caracas on Tuesday.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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