Make-believe opposition in organized crime dictatorships

Por Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
April 13,2018

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The farce staged by Dictator Nicolas Maduro to manipulate elections in Venezuela and perpetuate himself in power has revealed a make-believe opposition as another of the dictatorship’s fundamental components in the Americas.  In their quest to appear democratic they need to have an opposition and they implement it with accomplice operators that contribute to the sustainment of the regime.   This make-believe opposition is at work in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua to sustain organized crime’s dictatorships.

There is neither democracy, nor valid elections, in regimes that manipulate the ballots with a single party system that is forced or otherwise imposed upon the people, as in Cuba.  In the Castroist expansion of the 21^stCentury, the dictatorships chose to utilize democracy in order to supplant institutionalism and eliminate essential components of democracy.  They used the people’s votes to commit fraud, they supplanted their constitutions and replaced their institutional structure with dictatorial statutes which are proof in and by themselves that there is no democracy.

Under the direction of Cuba; Venezuela with Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, Bolivia with Evo Morales, Nicaragua with Daniel Ortega, and at one time Ecuador with Rafael Correa, conducted frequent elections and in order to win them, they staged a system of apparently credible simulators.  Part of the fraud and make-believe actions implemented by the dictatorships of the 21^stCentury Socialism, now turned into Organized Crime’s dictatorships was and is the creation, domestication, and manipulation of a “make-believe opposition”.

The political and social actors in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua are the make-believe opposition to the regime that appear, feign, and mimic to be true oppositors when, in reality, they are hard at work to sustain it.  They introduce themselves as oppositors, promise changes, propose to win elections to give back to the people their freedom, but in reality they are playing along to indefinitely perpetuate their dictators in power.  This make-believe opposition is an essential part of the fraud, deception to the people and the international community.  The simulated opposition is, simply stated; fraud, entrapment, rigging, and is part of the crime that Organized Crime’s regimes become institutionalized with a façade of normalcy in order to hold on to power.

The most noteworthy case, at this time, is that of the candidate presented as the opposition’s candidate in the forthcoming elections that the dictatorship has orchestrated illegally and lacking legitimacy in Venezuela.  The whole world knows this to be part of the rigging of the process, rigged to ensure Nicolas Maduro is perpetuated in power.  It is the calling to elections by a de-facto Constituent Assembly that functions usurping power in order to sustain the dictatorship in a country turned into a narco-state.  We must insist, this is a criminal act that makes both; the dictatorial regime, as well as the make-believe opposition, responsible.

Sadly enough, the existence of make-believe opposition to benefit and sustain Organized Crime’s dictatorships, doesn’t only apply to Venezuela, but has spread into Bolivia and Nicaragua where there are very small pockets of true civic and political resistance, and where the opposition has no chance of accessing to power through clean and fair elections, and where leaders of the true opposition are now political prisoners or exiles.

We now endure the utilization of a “make-believe” opposition in Venezuela and it is urgent to denounce it so that the world know that the coming 20 May elections is nothing but the Venezuelan Castroist Chavist dictatorship’s orchestration to ensure their anticipated outcome through the use of a make-believe opposition.  To demonstrate true opposition in this charade is very simple and it consists of all political and civic organizations to refuse to participate in such a criminal proceeding.

The next scenario, one in which a make-believe opposition is already hard at work, is happening in Bolivia where Evo Morales was deemed unable to run again as a candidate in elections of 2019. He was disqualified by a popular mandate through a referendum on 21 February of 2016 (21F).  Morales is now conducting electoral campaigns and “opposition” candidates are now surfacing with a clear mandate to multiply and in the process divide the popular rejection expressed by the 21F referendum, and deceive Bolivians by convincing them that the “opposition” has a chance to defeat the dictator.  The names of those Bolivian make-believe oppositors are already on the news media, some self-promoted, some others promoted and endorsed by their constituents, but all staging a charade so that Bolivians ignore that NO means NO and to keep this fraudulent electoral charade of Organized Crime from falling apart.

Published by Diario las Américas on Sunday April 8th, 2018

Translated from Spanish by: Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators Association, ATA # 234680.