The Venezuelan presidential elections of July 2024 have, not unexpectedly, created more controversy, violence, recriminations and threats.
The US attempt to destablise the Venezulan government through undermining the economy have persisted and intensifed progressively since 2014 . As noted by Alex in the youtube video below- sanctions almost completely destroyed the oil industry that Venezuela relied on for over 80% of its income. The pretence that ‘socialism’ and President Chavez and then President Maduro’s corruption destroyed Venezula rather than the sanctions is a constant repeated trope in Western mainstream media . As noted below Venezuela prior to Chavez was already a failed violent state.
The current constantly repeated trope in mainstream media is that a US funded election surveyer, Edison Research with strong links to the US government and intelligence services, had constructed an exit poll which showed the opposition presidential hopeful Gonzalez, winning by 65%. This sole exit poll has been repeated over and over in ALL Western media in the last few days as proof that the election was fixed by Maduro.
While it is possible that the Maduro government did fix the election, we need more information before we can make that accusation.
The West well knows that extreme external pressure on a nation-such as the Western sanctions and multiple US supported attempted coups that Venezuelans have endured for the past 10 years, can provoke a country to respond with ever tighter internal repression and brutality to control externally controlled dissident forces, and Venezula appears to be no exception to that rule; although the extent of that repression in Venezuela is of course amplified and exagerated by Western media. Current Western media reports of huge demonstrations against Madura in Vernezual’s capital Caracas and beyond appear to be vastly exaggerated.
The US, its Western allies, and those South American states in the Organisation of American States (OAS), despite their chorus of accusations, obviously have no way to know what really happened in the polls, without that information. As Mexico President AMLO states: “Before any results were known, the Organization of American States director had already recognized one of the candidates, with no evidence of ANYTHING… ENOUGH interventionism… they keep meddling from abroad!”
And given Western mainstream media’s historic and ongoing complicity in supporting US sponsored coups in Venezuela, one should take their accusations with a large grain of salt.
Perhaps the most ridiculous of those attempted coups and Western media support for it, was the attempt by an almost completely unknown Venezuelan member of Congress Juan Guido, with US backing, to pretend that he was in fact the rightful President of Venezuela. The fact that Western governments enthusiastically supported Guido’s outrageous claims despite any evidence, is proof positive of the anti-democratic attempts to once again control Venezuelan’s oil resources at any cost.
That the UK was prepared to compromise what remained of the Bank of England and the City of London’s integrity as a global financial centre by appropriating Venezuala’s gold on the excuse that the gold belonged to Guido’s pretend regime, indicates the extent to which every Western nation is prepared to do whatever the US requires them to.
Postscript
The announcement on 2nd August by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that there is ‘overwhelming evidence’ González beat Nicolás Maduro in the presidential election, without there actually being any ‘overwhelming evidence’ one way or the other at all at that stage, once again demonstrates how the US will go to any lengths to get ‘their’ person ‘elected’. (which obviously tells you a lot about the US’s own electoral process)
A great article by Counterpunch validating many of the arguments above
and
Systemic Disorder’s in depth assessment of the Venezuelan elections
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Links
https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2024/07/30/venezuela-elections-propaganda
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/07/29/us-government-edison-poll-venezuela-election/
https://hannity.com/media-room/poll-firm-that-provides-election-data-to-cnn-claims-error-yet-again/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/25/venezuelan-opposition-leader-guaido-expelled-from-colombia–
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/25/venezuelan-opposition-leader-guaido-expelled-from-colombia–
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/11/21249203/venezuela-coup-jordan-goudreau-maduro-guaido-explain
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202407/1316986.shtml
https://www.reuters.com/world/china-venezuela-sign-agreements-economy-trade-tourism-2023-09-13/
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/12/world/us-venezuela-sanctions-alina-douhan-intl/index.html
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/abandon-the-failed-venezuela-policy
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