The people from Venezuela and the international community must teach the dictator that crime does not grant rights

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The world’s public opinion is witnessing in real time, the perpetration of a series of crimes in the presidential elections of Venezuela. The Twenty-First Century Socialism’s dictatorship is trying to counterfeit the popular vote of over 70% in favor of the opposition’s candidate Edmundo Gonzales Urrutia into a 51% for Nicolas Maduro. This is a “vote-catching dictatorship in which people vote, but do not elect,” but the facts that are so overwhelming and the crimes that are so outrageous, offer a unique opportunity for the Venezuelan people and the international community to teach the dictator that crime does not grant any rights.

Venezuela’s presidential elections of 2024 take place in a country that is occupied by one of the 21st Century Socialism or Castrochavism’s dictatorship that is part of a group under the command of the Dictatorship-In-Chief from Cuba, who now controls Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. The group applies “State-terrorism” and its “vote-catching” system with functional opposition members. Instilling generalized fear, with political prisoners and exiles, using torture and crimes against humanity, they now undertake the brazen manipulation of the popular will with laws that conspire against human rights, with altered electoral registries, with a functional opposition and electoral officials who are no more than marionettes and puppets of the regime, with inducement to absenteeism, falsification of results and a narrative to have won the elections when -in reality- they have the rejection of the majority of Venezuelans.

Electoral fraud is “the illicit intervention of an electoral process with the objective of preventing, annulling, or modifying real balloting results, whether this be by increasing the number of votes of the favored candidate, decreasing the opposing candidates’ numbers, or both.” It is the real concurrence of crimes,” and “the perpetration of several and diverse types of crime aimed at achieving the same objective.”

The 2024 electoral process in Venezuela has -at least- four phases or scenarios: The first is the electoral campaign in which the opposition led by Maria Corina Machado, initially as a candidate and afterwards as the head of Edmundo Gonzales’ campaign, widely defeated the dictatorship and was able to mobilize the people who overcame their fear to the dictatorship and decided to back her. The second phase is the casting of votes and the broadcasting of results, in which the victory of Gonzales Urrutia was undeniable but was subjected to the fraudulent manipulation by the regime. The third phase is the fight against the counterfeited narrative of the falsified triumph by the dictatorship in order to show “real results” of the election that was actually won by the opposition. The fourth phase is the span of time between the acknowledgement of Gonzales’ victory to the surrendering of the Presidency by the dictator.

A “Transnational Organized Crime group” operates in the vote-catching dictatorship from Venezuela. This group is directed by Cuba’s Dictator-In-Chief who -from the very beginning of the electoral process- along with Nicolas Maduro, accomplices, and operators have committed and continue to commit crime. In the campaign’s initial stages, they disqualified Maria Corina Machado as well as her replacement Corina Yoris afterwards. They persecuted and imprisoned the opposition’s campaign leaders, keeping six of them at the embassy of Argentina in Caracas, they manipulated information, blockaded highways, and byways, sabotaged the opposition’s campaign, and much more. On the day of the elections, 78 cases of political persecution, 26 cases of arbitrary detentions, three disappearances, harassment, deaths without any explanation, were documented. Members of the National Electoral Council (CNE in Spanish) committed ideological and material falsifications, used counterfeited instruments, perpetrated public fraud, broadcasted fake news, and committed an overwhelming number of flagrant crimes presenting a grotesque and criminal result.

The Castrochavist mechanism has been applied in elections of this century in; Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and temporarily in Ecuador. It failed in 2019 in Bolivia when Evo Morales’ fraud was discovered and he resigned. Morales was rescued to impunity by Lopez Obrador from Mexico, but came back with criminal success to Bolivia in 2020 and Nicaragua in 2021. What we are now witnessing in Venezuela is this criminal franchise that -by the overwhelming evidence of the facts- was not expected to be repeated but that it is vital for a dictatorial system that is based on the Castroist dogma “power is never surrendered.”

There is only one thing with which the results of the elections may be cleared and that is “for every vote to be counted in a fair and transparent manner, publicly, with the presence of the opposition and the press.” The public recounting of votes based on the demonstration of the electoral report of each ballot box is the only means of evidence for whom the votes of Venezuelans were casted.

The information presented by the CNE has neither accomplished, nor closed, anything. It is the beginning of a wide process of investigation, presentation of charges, and sanctions against individuals who commit this grievous chain of crimes who are subject to the United Nations’ Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, or the Palermo Convention yielding Judicial Competence to any democratic country of the world due to “the substantial effects of the crime in their territory.”

The attempt to commit fraud by dictator Maduro is not, and will not, be consummated. It is evidence of flagrant crime nationally and internationally repudiated. His denial to have a public and transparent recounting of votes would only confirm the commission of crime and prompt legitimate mechanisms of internal civil resistance and international actions with which the peoples from Venezuela and the international community will teach the dictator that crime does neither grant any rights, nor ensures impunity.

*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas