Venezuelan Elections: Final Farewell to Democracy?

After the officially declared re-election of president Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, violent clashes have broken out between demonstrators and police. The opposition is claiming mass electoral fraud. Ahead of the elections the most promising opposition candidate, María Corina Machado, had already been disqualified from running on arbitrary grounds. The mood among Europe's press is bleak.

Clear case of rigged elections

Poland's Tygodnik Powszechny comments:

“Unfortunately, this situation was to be expected. The opposition, with its icon María Corina Machado, posed a real threat to Maduro's socialist regime. Corina Machado had won the primaries in 2023 and received 92.5 percent of the vote, with a turnout of 64.88 percent. There is no doubt that she would have won the election. However, even before the election campaign began, she was prevented from running by court order without any grounds being given. ... Anything could happen now. The Venezuelans are starting to take to the streets and demand justice.”

Maduro doesn't care what the people want

France's La Croix laments:

“This parody of democracy underlines the nature of the regime: a civil-military alliance imposed a quarter of a century ago by its founder Hugo Chávez, who promised '21st-century socialism'. ... The promise of a welfare state was broken because the regime favoured a targeted policy of redistribution. The oil revenues have dried up as a result of American sanctions and government incompetence. The collapse in living standards has driven a quarter of the population into exile. To put an end to the chaos, arbitrariness and dependency, a large part of the population wanted change. But Nicolás Maduro is one of those apparatchiks who refuses to be dependent on the people under any circumstances.”

On the path to dictatorship

It's up to the neighbouring countries now, Austria's Der Standard urges:

“Maduro now faces the next fork in the road that will determine the country's fate. ... US sanctions have so far managed to weaken Venezuela's economy, but not Maduro's regime, and fortunately the US has given up on the idea of changing regimes through military intervention. The neighbouring countries with left-leaning governments such as Brazil and Colombia are most likely to be able to exert some pressure or at least try to mediate. But there can be no compromise between democracy and dictatorship. If Maduro is prepared to plunge his country into the abyss to maintain his grip on power, then Venezuela's future will be even bleaker than the present.”

Moving towards the Cuban model

The real winners of the election are being forcibly suppressed, Spain's El Mundo notes with resignation:

“Maduro's plan to cement his power by ignoring the victory of Edmundo González and María Corina Machado is as ham-fisted as Chavism. ... The opposition knows it won the elections and that Maduro's only option was to cheat if he wanted to stay in power. Maduro will most likely tighten his iron grip in order to immortalise himself (and then his son and all the children of his cronies). The repression could even end up as brutal as Castrism in Cuba. According to activists there, the island is without internet at the moment because the Cuban regime fears that the enthusiasm on the streets of Caracas could spill over.”

Greetings from beleaguered Belarus

Commenting in a Facebook post, economics professor Konstantin Sonin, from Russia, sees a familiar pattern in Maduro's actions:

“Venezuelan head of state Maduro is attempting the same feat that Lukashenka performed in 2020. Back then, Lukashenka suffered a crushing defeat to opposition candidate Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya but still managed to cling to power in the face of massive protests. This led to another wave of emigration - hundreds of thousands of people left tiny Belarus and thousands were subjected to brutal repression. ... We can only hope that Maduro will not succeed. The price Venezuela's citizens are paying for their leader's insatiable thirst for power is too high.”

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