Will Venezuela’s Neighbors Let Maduro Get Away With Election Fraud?

-OpEd-

BOGOTÁ — Barring some extraordinary event, it looks like the sinister clown that is our neighbor, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, will govern his country until January 10, 2031. “Clown,” I say, recalling how he once claimed he had talked to little birds and for his love of new words (like “auto-suicide”) and “sinister” nonetheless, for threatening the win elections “by hook or by crook,” murdering civilians, and sending millions of compatriots into exile or abject poverty at home.

He calls Argentina’s president a Nazi, “trash” and ugly (“with a monster face”), has challenged the billionaire owner X and Tesla to a fist fight, and left the United States, which had eased its sanctions to assure a fair election, in ridicule.

This hurts, when you think Chavismo or the movement first led by Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, could last 32 years. That is almost half a person’s life. It means the self-styled Bolivarian revolution will have pummeled two generations in the rubble of a ruined economy, utter poverty, isolation from the world or exile. You wonder if here, our president, Gustavo Petro, with his big concerns about righting wrongs in the world, has a sense of what this means for common folk who have just been robbed of their votes!

Deep pain

Venezuela is certainly a source of pain and concern to people outside, especially next door. Of greater concern is how respecting the “little red book” of socialist ideals seems to be more important in Latin America than all human considerations put together. It hurts to see our government’s cynical incoherence over a matter that long ceased to be Venezuela’s own business (for Petro, like his friend the Mexican president, is being obsessive with ‘non-intervention’ in Venezuela’s affairs).

Maduro has “pulled a fast one.”

Failing to call out the brazen electoral fraud engineered in Caracas on July 28, our government has instead emitted a series of ambivalent, confusing, inconclusive and, frankly, conniving statements with the regime there. A month ago, it decided not to send observers to the election, leaving it with the option of simply accepting or rejecting the results, which nobody has been able to check.

Then when it was clear Maduro had “pulled a fast one,” it was silence here, until July 31 when the foreign minister suggested verification and a reliable recount of votes were needed. Yet hours later, the Colombian government — alongside Mexico and Brazil — failed to vote for the Organization of American States’ (OAS) motion urging a recount.

Turning a blind eye 

Why? Petro said the OAS was meddling in the affairs of Venezuela, when it is no longer a member. It sounded like he was being ‘fair,’ unless of course, Petro, like so many leaders, simply cannot stand adverse votes and decisions! Because you may recall how this same OAS, which Petro now disdains, defended through the Inter-American Court of Human Rights his political rights (like the right to run for public office) when Colombia’s chief inspector sacked him as mayor of Bogotá. He partly owes his presidency to it. Now wasn’t that meddling in a country’s affairs? Petro would probably say no, claiming there was a clear and evident violation then, and a ruling was needed. This presumably is not the case with Venezuela, where Petro’s friend, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said there was “no proof” of fraud!

Just two years ago, Petro was asked on a television debate if he thought Venezuela was a dictatorship, and he said yes. He had to of course, as he was running for the presidency.

We too have become victims of Venezuela’s brazen regime.

For decades we have complained about the OAS being toothless and useless, and now that it has taken a firm stance, we accuse it of overstepping its powers. History will recall how Colombia has now helped scupper a resolution with the symbolic power of not recognizing Maduro’s sham election result. By not attending the OAS, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have given the dictator breathing space, and time to make hundreds of arrests. Like that of the opposition politician Freddy Superlano who, prosecutors are saying with sinister overtones, is now “cooperating.” Equally sinister is the attack on the offices of the opposition chief Corina Machado and removal of all computers there.

Needless to say, Maduro’s friends — the same ones who denounce Israel but not Russia — have nothing to say about hundreds of protesters being held incognito.

Chile’s example

They might have taken their cue from Chile’s young president, Gabriel Boric, who put his socialism aside for a moment to speak up for people’s rights and freedom.

Petro says he wants to turn this country into a great power of life values and respect for nature. For that he dared called Netanyahu a Nazi for bombarding Gaza — jeopardizing our close military collaborations with Israel — so why is he being mealy-mouthed with Maduro?

It must be the diplomatic or political calculations. We have a shared frontier, two-way flows, a common agenda and of course we need peace here, which Maduro could spoil. It will be precarious mind, not the “total peace” Petro has promised, when you have a dictator and a bully next door. But his calculation is mistaken: because he is sending the wrong signals to millions of voters in Colombia, and it will mean more immigration and desperate arrivals with possible repercussions for security in our cities.

It’s not just the Venezuelans then: We too Colombians, with our deluded president, have become victims of Venezuela’s brazen regime.