The Maduro government still shows no signs of surrendering power in Venezuela
As the deadline expired yesterday for the Maduro government in Venezuela to show detailed poll-by-poll voting records, opposition candidate Edmundo González was recognized as president-elect of Venezuela by the governments of Argentina, the United States and Uruguay. (Peru already recognized him on Tuesday).
But on the streets of Caracas and other Venezuelan cities, there was no sign this week that the Maduro government was reconsidering its strategy of claiming victory and seeking to crush dissent through force.
On Friday, the opposition reported that its headquarters, El Bejucal in the Caracas district of Altamira, was raided and vandalized overnight by a group of six armed and hooded men wearing camouflage.
Arrests of volunteer poll workers continued across the country, as the government sought to prevent the opposition from uploading digitized receipts from individual polls that show the opposition with a margin of victory of more than two-to-one.
Venezuelan social media is full of videos of raids showing opposition volunteers being dragged from their homes. In some cases, angry crowds have attempted to prevent the arrests.
Venezuelans have also been posting videos of uniformed foreigners on the streets of Caracas, including Cubans and a soldier wearing the insignia of the Wagner Group, a notorious mercenary group linked to the Kremlin that has played a major role in wars in Ukraine and various parts of Africa.
Others have tracked flights arriving from Cuba, or photographed Russian aircraft landing in Caracas.
Well, yeah. Maduro knows what giving up power does to a dictator's life expectancy.
Brazil has a long list of dictators that abandoned power and did just fine. As a sibling commented, so does Argentina. I can only remember Peru in South America that made a fuss about it... and then reversed course.
But holding to it when things escalate does usually end very badly.
Left wing dictators maybe. Pinochet did just fine after handing things over.
Well mussolini was the og right wing dictator and he didn't have a fun end
The OG right wing dictators are called kings.
(Also literal Roman dictators)
Technically, there was no right wing as we understand it today before the French revolution. The left sat to the left of the king (represented the people) and the right...to the right (represented the nobility and the clergy). The king was supposed to be in the "middle" and arbitrate.
The romans had two factions in the Senate which you could associate with right/left: the optimates and the populares. e.g. Caesar, a dictator, was in the populares (a populist?), so according to your anachronistic view he was a left-wing dictator.
There are more examples of kings that tried to reduce the power of the nobility by appealing to the common people, distribute wealth and build infrastructure.
That's how absolutism came to be, strengthening of royal power as opposed to that of nobles, making the royal army stronger without vassal troops, and that infrastructure being built too strengthened central power.
Yea, absolutism took power away from everyone into the state at a time when states were embodied in kings.
Mussolini was the OG fascist. Certainly not any OG dictator.
Well he also like lost WW2...
And they won't without bloodshed... Thinking that it can be done diplomatically is noble but I sincerely can't see it
Sounds like another US coup attempt,
Well informed take /s
Good one
/s
I don't understand the people butt hurt by your comment. The US has tried to coup Venezuela multiple times john boltman admitted it on camera in an interview.
If you think the US ISNT trying a coup, then I have a bridge to sell you.
But you don't get it, US government and that piece of human excrement John Bolton have got to be telling the truth this time!
(my apologies to human excrement for the unfair comparison)
When does Bolton's tenure end? I've seen this guys named on so many shit shows for a really, really long time... Warhawk temper-tantrum weirdo
Oh just looked it up in wikipedia. He's held some office during Regan, George HW, George W and Donald's presidency... Doing shit show work all along the way. His tenure is ended, if we vote accordingly
Plz vote; kthx!
As soon as possible couldn't be soon enough to get rid of this pestilence my friend. He never saw a war he didn't like, as if the devastation him and his kind have caused already wasn't enough. Absolutely astounding.
Edit: Not fair to leave unmentioned he (and his ilk, Victoria Nuland) was highly in involved in the Biden administration's handling of Ukraine. It is all the same mfers behind the scenes, if not worse waiting in the wings, and voting ain't doing shit about it. Which is why you're still allowed to do so.
So wait, after winning the election he doesn't wanna roll over and let a US puppet rule instead? Surprised pikachu 😮
You have fair elections until someone you like wins. Then that guy stays there forever 🙃 good thing that the right wing never thought of that trick.
"Democracy is like a train, you ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you get off." seems to be the motto of these online 'leftists'.
So many neo-monarchists out there thinking that a benevolent dictatorship is better than a democracy, but benevolence is in the eye of the beholder, varies with time and none of those people ever consider how a malevolent dictatorship is worse than any democracy.