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Caribbean-Latin America

Venezuelan opposition vows to fight ''to the end''

2024-08-19

[NEWAGEBD]

Venezuela's opposition, claiming victory in presidential elections they say were stolen by strongman Nicolas Maduro, gathered in the thousands in Caracas and elsewhere on Saturday, vowing to fight 'to the end.'

People rallied in several cities in Venezuela

...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south...
and as far afield as Spain, Belgium and Australia in response to a call by opposition leader Maria Corina Machado to join a 'Protest for the Truth.'

Venezuela

Machado herself came out of hiding to lead a rally in the capital, seeking to intensify pressure on Maduro to concede what she and others say was an overwhelming win for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia in July 28 polls.

'We won't leave the streets,' Machado told thousands of demonstrators, many of whom waved the national flag and copies of election records from their voting stations as proof of an opposition victory.

'Peaceful protest is our right,' she said as demonstrators chanted 'Liberty! Liberty!' and clamored to get as near as possible to the wildly popular politician.

Authorities later confiscated the open-top truck that Machado uses as a stage at rallies, including on Saturday, according to an X post from her Comando Con Venezuela alliance.

Venezuela's National Electoral Council proclaimed Maduro the winner of a third six-year term until 2031, giving him 52 per cent of votes cast but without providing a detailed breakdown of the results.

The opposition says polling station-level results show Gonzalez Urrutia took more than two-thirds of the vote.

He had replaced Machado on the ballot after she was barred from running by institutions loyal to the regime.

'This is a criminal government that wants to hold on to power. I smell freedom, I have nothing to fear,' demonstrator Adriana Calzadilla, a 55-year-old teacher, said in Caracas, where National Guard officers and police were out in force.

Another, 42-year-old economist Iliana Alvarean, conceded that she did 'feel fear.'

'One does not stop feeling it, because of the repression. But we want him (Maduro) out. We are here to the end.'

No incidents were reported from the rallies, which took place under heavy security.

Maduro on Saturday accused Gonzalez Urrutia, who last appeared in public at a protest on July 30, of trying to flee the country.

'He's hiding in a cave. And he's preparing his escape from Venezuela. Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is taking the money and going to Miami,' Maduro told supporters at a rally outside the Miraflores presidential palace.

He has called for Machado and Gonzalez Urrutia to be arrested, accusing them of seeking to foment a 'coup d'etat.'

Gonzalez Urrutia was defiant in a post on X earlier in the day: 'We have the votes, the records, the support of the international community and Venezuelans determined to fight. It is time for an orderly transition.'

Anti-Maduro protests have claimed 25 lives so far, with nearly 200 injured and more than 2,400 arrested since election day.

At one of the first overseas demonstrations to get underway Saturday, more than 100 Venezuelans in Australia rallied in Sydney.

Thousands more protested across Spain, host to about 2,80,000 of the nearly eight million Venezuelans to have fled their country as the economy collapsed on the watch of Maduro, in office since 2013.

There were also rallies in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina
...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita...
where 34-year-old Andreina Escalante said 'we have faith that we will get out of the dictatorship.'

Posted by:Fred

#1 Maybe giving new meaning to the old phrase, "The end is near"?

Posted by: Tom 2024-08-19 10:33

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