VENEZUELA-
By Pasqualina Curcio-
Have the people who call Nicolás Maduro a dictator, usurper, and that the period 2019-2025 lacks legitimacy asked themselves this question? Or are they just repeating what they hear?
The 12 countries that met in Lima started this smear media campaign. It reads on their release: “… the electoral process conducted on Venezuela on May 20th 2018 lacks legitimacy by not counting with the participation of all the venezuelan political actors, nor with the presence of international independent observers, nor with the guarantees and international standards necessary for a free, just, and transparent process.”
The leaders of the Venezuelan opposition, we are talking about the no-democracy here, repeat nonstop, and of course without arguments, that Maduro is a usurper.
In a desperate act, the Vice President of the US Mike Pence himself, being obliged to personally call for the opposition rally on January 23rd, given the incompetence of the opposition leaders, insisted and repeated that the President Nicolás Maduro is a dictator, usurper, and illegitimate.
The strategy is clear, to repeat a thousand times the same lies to transform it into the truth.
Lets dismantle the lie:
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There were presidential elections. They took place on May 20th 2018, that is, before January 10th 2019, time at which according to the articles 230 and 231 of the Constitution ends the presidential term 2013-2019. It would be against the Constitution if the elections were to take place after January 10th 2019, or even worse if they hadn’t taken place at all.
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It was the Venezuelan opposition the one that solicited that the elections should take place in May and not December, as is tradition, because it was the opposition the one that solicited, in the framework of the dialogue in the Dominican Republic, for the elections to take place on the first quarter of 2018.
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In Venezuela voting os a right, not a duty. Those who freely, though influenced by political and non democratic organizations who called to abstain, decided to not vote are on their full rights, but that absolutely does not makes the electoral process illegitimate, even so when that would imply ignoring and disrespecting the 9,389,056 who decided to vote and exercised democratically their right to the suffrage.
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16 parties participated on the electoral contest: PSUV, MSV, Tupamaro, UPV, Podemos, PPT, ORA, MPAC, MEP, PCV, AP, MAS, Copei, Esperanza por el Cambio, UPP89. In Venezuela it is not mandatory that all political parties participate on the electoral processes. They are on their full right if they decide to participate or not. Exactly because our system is democratic. The fact that three parties freely decided to not participate, does not make the electoral process illegitimate.
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6 candidates ran: Nicolás Maduro, Henri Falcón, Javier Bertucci, Reinaldo Quijada, Francisco Visconti Osorio, and Luis Alejandro Ratti (the last two decided to drop out).
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Maduro won with a big margin, he got 6,248,864 votes, a 67.84%; next were Henri Falcón with 1,927,958, a 20.93%; Javier Bertucci with 1,015,895, 10.82%; and Reinaldo Quijada who got 36,246 votes, a 0.39% of the total. The difference between Maduro and Falcón was of 46.91%.
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The electoral process was accompanied by 150 people, between them 14 electoral commissions of 8 countries; 2 technical electoral missions; 18 journalists from all around the world; 1 member of the European Parliament and 1 techno-electoral delegation of the Central Electoral Commission of Russia.
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The elections took place within the same electoral system used on the parliamentary elections of December 2015, on which the venezuelan opposition won. System which is automatized and subjected to auditing before, during, and after the elections. System which guarantees the principles of “one voter, one vote” because only with a fingerprint does the voting machine unlock, and guarantees the “secrecy of voting”.
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18 audits were made on the automated system. The representatives of the candidate Henri Falcón participated on all 18 of them and subscribed to the minutes on which they manifest the conformity with the electoral system. The audits are public and transmitted on live tv by the channel of the Electoral National Council. Once the audits are conducted, the system locks itself and the only way to access again is with the simultaneous input of the secret codes every political organization possesses.
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None of the candidates that participated on the electoral process disputed the results. There are no proofs of fraud, there was no evidence present or concrete report of fraud.
The electoral elections of of May 20th 2018 were free, transparent, trustworthy, secure, and according to the Constitution and the laws despite the antidemocratic call to abstain from a part of the opposition.
They are the others the ones who pretend to usurp the Presidency of the Republic with the argument of a supposed power vacuum, figure that’s not present on our Constitution and the establishment of a “transitory government”, figure that’s also not present on the Carta Magna. And as if this wasn’t enough, they pretend to exercise their power outside of the frontiers violating the article 18 of the Constitution which establishes that Caracas is where the political powers are established.
This being so, the others are the usurpers, illegitimates, and antidemocratic.
Is illegitimate and constitutes an attempt at usurping that certain parts of the opposition pretend to support foreign powers coming from imperialist governments to exercise an authority that neither the people nor the Constitution grants them.
Lets repeat these truths a thousand times.
Translation: Massimiliano Tron F.