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American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Venezuela: More election fraud

Yesterday Venezuela held elections for its 23 state governors, and as usual, amidst more fraud. Of course, Maduro’s party, the PSUV, won.

Clueless NPR was surprised.

Mary O’Grady writes on Venezuela’s Latest Election Fraud. Maduro allowed the phony balloting only to preserve the illusion of democracy.

Sunday’s exercise in the Cuba-backed dictatorship was a sham.

Maduro had other motives as well. He wants to lull Venezuelans into the false sense that a transition away from communism is possible at the ballot box. That illusion has so far held back rebellion.

He also seeks to legitimize his illegal “constituent assembly,” elected on July 30—from an unchallenged list of candidates—to replace the Legislature and rewrite the constitution. He said voting Sunday was an endorsement of the new assembly and any opposition governor who will not swear allegiance to it will be removed.

The fraud was under way long before the first vote was cast. The dictatorship announced the election only a month in advance. Candidates rushed to submit their names under a five-day deadline. Later the regime decided to hold a day of primaries. But when antigovernment candidates who lost the primaries asked to withdraw and throw their support to the primary winners, the regime refused to take their names off the ballot.

And then polling stations were relocated.

Caracas Chronicles looks Down the Sketchy Election Fraud Road, Again.

Daniel Duquenal calls it A grotesque electoral fraud. As one of his commenters said, “Dictatorships don’t leave with votes.”

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Brazil, Colombia, Guyana border towns overwhelmed by Venezuelans in need of medical care

Sabrina Martín at Panampost writes,
Venezuela’s Medicine Shortages Overwhelming Border Cities in Guyana, Colombia, Brazil. The ongoing problem is getting worse,

Venezuela’s political crisis has bled into widespread food and medical shortages for some time now, causing families to travel to neighboring countries such as Colombia in search of basic healthcare and vaccines for children.

If you were wondering about the thousands of Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela under the Barrio Adentro oil-for-doctors program, last January the Miami Herald reported, Dumping medicine, faking patients: Cuban doctors describe a system that breeds fraud

“I worked for three and a half years as a dentist in Venezuela, and it was horrible dealing with the statistics,” said Rodríguez, who defected from the program late last year and is in Colombia awaiting a U.S. visa. “I might see five patients a day, but I had to say I’d seen 18, and then throw all that medicine away, because we simply had to.”

Trashing medicine in a country where it’s desperately needed was painful, doctors said. But if they were caught giving it away — or even worse, selling it — they would be kicked out of the mission and sent back to Cuba. And regular audits of their supplies meant they needed them to match their patient count.

There’s a lot of money involved (emphasis added),

“You have to understand that Venezuela pays Cuba based on statistics, not based on what’s really happening in the clinics,” he explained.
. . .
Dentists are particularly under the gun because Venezuela pays for their services in cash, as opposed to crude, workers said.

Communism does not work.

In other news,

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Real news: Russia is arming Venezuela

Noisy Room and Memri have the story:

In April of this year, Maduro’s Defense Minister paid an interesting visit to Moscow. Vladimir Padrino Lopez the Defense Minister, would meet his Russian counterpart, Sergey Kuzhugetovich Shoygu, at the Conference on International Security,

In his speech at the conference, Padrino López expressed Venezuela’s concern over the cooperation agreement signed between Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia and NATO, in order to fight “organized crime.” “NATO has a sad history of warlike actions in the past… NATO is an organization with high operational character and a history of aggression,” he stressed.[6]

Not much is known for Shoigu, the man who is supposed to lead Russia after Putin steps down as president.

If the name sounds familiar, Shoigu is the guy who said in 2014 that Russia intends to install military bases in Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, the Seychelles, Singapore and several other countries.

In Venezuela, Maduro depends on Russia, Iran and Syria for financial and strategic backing.

The opposition to Mr. Maduro also is up against an array of international antidemocratic forces. The cabal is run by Cuba on the ground but backed financially and strategically by Iran, Russia and Syria. These countries have been preparing for many years for a conflict that would establish Latin America’s “new world order.” They would also welcome the inevitable refugee crisis.
. . .
Russia supplies arms to Venezuela. In November the Kremlin sent new aviation and air-defense technology to Caracas. Reuters reported in May that Venezuela now has “5,000 Russian-made MANPADS surface-to-air weapons,” representing “the largest known stockpile in Latin America.”

Read also Memri‘s May 2017 analysis of Russia-Venezuela relations.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S. the major media outlets carry on with a RussiaRussiaRussia narrative for which there is  no evidence.

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Brazil: Lula trial reveals ties with Chavez

As you may recall, Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is on trial.

All sorts of things are coming out. For instance, Lula personally recruited

Mônica Moura and her husband João Santana, a couple whose marketing strategies helped keep Brazil’s leftist Workers’ Party in power for 13 years

for help in Venezuelan Hugo Chávez’s 2012 campaign. Current dictator Nicolás Maduro (emphasis added)

Mr. Maduro, then Venezuela’s foreign minister, personally handed Ms. Moura $11 million in cash in his Caracas office, she said in the testimony given in court to Brazilian prosecutors in exchange for a reduced sentence on corruption charges. Brazil’s two largest construction companies, Odebrecht SA and Andrade Gutierrez, which are under investigation in Brazil for allegedly paying bribes to Mr. da Silva, wired her an additional $9 million to an offshore account, Ms. Moura said.

As the article correctly points out,

Under Mr. Chávez, Odebrecht became the biggest contractor in Venezuela, receiving roughly $11 billion over 14 years for projects ranging from irrigation channels to airports.
. . .
Odebrecht admitted to paying $98 million in bribes in Venezuela.

Now

The heads of Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez, as well as Mr. Santana and Ms. Moura, are all in jail or confined to their homes after being convicted on corruption charges related to Car Wash.

And they’re willing to talk.

Will this have any effect on Venezuela’s deteriorating condition? I doubt it; but it will have repercussions in Brazil.

Stay tuned.

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Venezuela’s Maduro: “I’m not Mussolini”

As the saying goes. at least Mussolini made the trains run on time:
Nicolás Maduro Calls for New Venezuelan Constitution. President signs order to convene special assembly to redraft constitution and tells critics: ‘I am no Mussolini’

Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro on Monday signed an order to convene a special assembly to redraft the country’s constitution, the latest in a string of efforts to retain power in the face of mounting protests and civil unrest.

Mr. Maduro called for a vote—though it remained unclear among whom—to elect a so-called constituent assembly, which would in theory become the nation’s highest authority.

I’m not sure why the article says “it remained unclear” who would vote: Maduro clearly intends it would be his yes-men and minions:
Venezuela’s Maduro calls for new constitution written by ‘people’s’ body

Maduro told the May Day crowd that he would submit the application for the new body to write the referendum to the National Electoral Council on Monday.

It urges the election of 500 people to sit on the assembly. Around half would be drawn from sectors of society — from a “working class base,” Maduro said — directly choosing their representatives, while the other half would be named by local councils across the country.

“It is going to be a Constituent Assembly elected by direct vote by the people,” he said.

This is the first call for a constituent assembly since Hugo Chávez rewrote the Venezuelan constitution in 1999.

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Venezuela: Madurantoinette

The hapless Marie Antionette supposedly said, “Let them eat cake!”

Maduro is saying “Peace will prevail.”

Nicolás Maduro’s Videos Present an Alternative Venezuelan Reality. President’s soothing social-media offerings stand in contrast to unrest and shortages plaguing his country

“Peace will prevail,” the former bus driver says in one video as he drives other ruling-party officials through a middle-class neighborhood in his car. The footage inadvertently shows them cruising past graffiti that calls the president a “murderer of students,” an apparent reference to some of the people killed in numerous clashes between demonstrators and security forces.

“With Montalbán neighbors, sharing ideas and betting with the middle class for peace and coexistence.”

The article doesn’t mention that Maduro’s show must be carried by all licensed radio and TV stations under penalty of law.

I wasn’t sure whether to call Maduro “Caracas Chuck,” a la Baghdad Bob, or Madurantoinette. I went with the latter since we don’t know who’ll be in charge after he’s done.

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Venezuela to OAS: “You can’t fire me, I quit!”

Venezuela says it will withdraw from the Organization of American States (OAS), accusing the US-based grouping of meddling in its internal affairs.

The government made the announcement after the OAS voted to hold a meeting of foreign ministers to discuss the spiralling crisis in Venezuela.

Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez

said Wednesday that Mr. Maduro ordered the withdrawal from the Organization of American States after 19 of the group’s 34 members agreed on a resolution to discuss Venezuela’s precarious situation.

The demonstrations continue.

“Security forces repress demonstrators on the Francisco Fajardo highway and Las Mercedes in Caracas”

The son of Venezuela’s rights ombudsman, Tarek William Saab, has called on his father to “stop the injustice which has sunk Venezuela”.

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