The People Of Venezuela COntinuie To REsist Maduro

Ganamos Venezuela Tens of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets around the world over the weekend, demanding that authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro recognize the results of last month’s election they say he lost. In the capital Caracas and other cities across Venezuela, in the United States, Australia, South Korea, Madagascar and elsewhere, Venezuelans carried flags that featured their candidate, Edmundo González, who reportedly won twice as many votes as Maduro, flags that read, “Ganamos” (we win), NBC News reported. The protests were organized by the opposition, calling on Maduro to step down and the world to recognize its historic election win on July 28. Some like the US have already answered that call, saying González won the election, while the European Union is withholding its recognition of Maduro until he releases the election results in full. But so far, Maduro, and the election commission he controls, insist that he won the election with 51 percent of the vote, while refusing to release the full results. Instead, he has cracked down on the protests – 24 people have already been killed and more than 2,400 people have been arrested since the election, added National Public Radio. Social media and communication apps such as WhatsApp have been monitored and tampered with. Doesn’t matter, say protesters. On Saturday in Caracas, demonstrators shouted, “We are not afraid.” “Today the world knows what we Venezuelans are made of … we awakened a country,” opposition leader María Corina Machado, said in a video message Saturday morning. “They try to scare us, to divide us, to paralyze us, but they cannot.” Maduro, who deployed police against the demonstrators on Saturday, has held office since 2013 after the death of his mentor, socialist Hugo Chávez. He has undermined the country’s economy while destroying its democracy, explained the Council on Foreign Relations. Chávez, who was enormously popular, leveraged his country’s wealth to help the poor. The bloated state that he created bred corruption and mismanagement, however. Maduro expanded the system rather than used Venezuela’s oil wealth to grow sustainable economic development, while staying in power through repression, his hold on the police and military, and rigged elections. As a result, almost 8 million people have fled the country, with more saying they are planning to leave if the political and economic situations don’t improve. Analysts told the Guardian that Venezuela under Maduro now has two paths forward. The country could become like Nicaragua, where President Daniel Ortega has seized total control of society through violence and repression, or Romania, where frustrated citizens started a revolution that ended the harsh and failing communist regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Nicaragua appears to be Maduro’s preferred model. He has called for security forces to use an “iron fist” against protesters who took to the streets to call for fair elections, wrote Agence France-Presse. And the repression after this election has been worse than anything people have seen in decades, according to the New York Times. Western leaders have condemned Maduro but have offered few changes to sanctions they have already slapped on the South American country, Reuters reported. His allies – China, Iran, and Russia – are key to his survival, but they haven’t been as forthcoming with aid or business opportunities as they were in the past, argued World Politics Review. Maduro might have nobody else to rely on but the men with guns around him. That’s because, the protesters say, he doesn’t seem to have the people anymore. “We are here reminding those who have confiscated power that they have to release it – the people have chosen, and we won,” Maria Vallera, a retired 80-year-old in the crowd, told the Washington Post. “It’s a dictatorship, what we have here. He refuses to recognize what the people want. He knows he has lost the people.” Share this story