Venezuela’s Dictator Rigs the Next Election (Is Violence the Only Path Forward?) – By John Sexton (Hot Air) / Jan 26, 2024
The second to worst worst thing that can happen to a civil society is civil war. The only thing worse than that is what Venezuela is living with right now, a dictatorship in which there is no hope of democratic change or equal justice. In Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela his voice is the only one that matters. It has been that way since he took over as the hand-picked successor to communist blowhard Hugo Chavez in 2013.
Since then, opposition figures have tried everything to get a fair chance at defeating Maduro at the ballot box and at every turn they have been thwarted. Some were arrested and wound up in jail on trumped up charges. Others were simply told they weren’t allowed to run. The latest effort in this long series involves Maria Corina Machado, a candidate who supports free-markets instead of the black market socialist economy which has resulted in extreme inflation and more than 7 million Venezuelans fleeing the country to survive.
Machado is well liked and last October she was the overwhelming winner of a 10-candidate race to become the main opposition candidate in the next presidential election. There was just one problem. Nicolas Maduro’s government had announced prior to the opposition election that Machado was forbidden from holding office for 15 years. Why? That’s a question you ask in a country that isn’t a banana republic. In Venezuela the only answer is because President Maduro considers her a threat.
