A protester holds a reward sign for Maduro
A protester holds a sign promising a reward for Maduro's arrest Juan Carlos Rojas/ZUMA

-OpEd-

BOGOTÁ — This Friday, the world will finally find out what happens next in Venezuela.

The opposition candidate Edmundo González won the presidential elections last July, but the dictator Nicolás Maduro has continued to refuse to hand over power. And now, all kinds of rumors and possible scenarios are circulating about what might happen: there could be a military coup, foreign mercenaries will arrive, millions of Venezuelans are going to march on the Miraflores presidential palace, hoping for a “Syrian miracle.”

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In each case, the events would lead to the usurper of the public will being forced to flee .

Fears of a tyrant

Many countries around the world have firmly rejected Maduro’s intention to hold on to power, while others including our own country Colombia, have played a shameful role in justifying his conduct and multiple violations of human rights and democracy. As of now, nobody knows what Colombian President Gustavo Petro, intends to do other than have the Colombian ambassador attend the tyrant’s inauguration.

International organizations like the Organization of American States and the United Nations have played a dismally inadequate role. It’s hardly surprising as neither has done or decided anything in the past 20 years to prevent a dictatorship, war, violation of human rights or invasion .

Some harbor hopes of vengeance.

Maduro seems frightened and has certainly spoiled his own chance of an orderly, negotiated departure, which the opposition had offered him. I am not sure what the armed forces will do, but, with a bit of wishful thinking, I dare say Maduro has likely lost the support of all the military.

Millions of people want to see him leave the country, and some harbor hopes of vengeance, that Maduro share the fate of other dictators who were ultimately given a taste of popular justice.

I hope the long-suffering Venezuelans will follow the guidelines set out by opposition leaders González and María Corina Machado, and protest peacefully until the tyrant falls.

The country can expect hard days ahead as its citizens are tired and grappling with disastrous public services like education and healthcare. The country’s infrastructures are far worse than they were 40 or 50 years ago, inflation is unchecked and an equivalent average monthly salary of two dollars a month is reason enough to rise up against a dictator.

Nicolás Maduro gives a speech seated with a large painting behind him
Nicolás Maduro speaks before signing documents on the Venezuela-Russia relationship. – Alexander Kryazhev/ZUMA

Right side of history

Colombia’s Petro meanwhile has but a few days left to put himself on the right side of history . How can you just look the other way when it comes to backing or rejecting a dictator, especially when the regime in question is a neighbor with which we have extensive economic, policing and consular issues to deal with?

Of course, we know this president of ours is emotionally far from averse to the communist systems in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

Maduro’s latest outrage was to offer 0,000 to anyone handing over the president-elect (González, should he enter Venezuela ). If the tyrant should dare imprison González, this would surely seal his fate and that of his criminal thugs .