Towards the end of the road
As I was closing this chronicle, the Supreme Court of Justice endorsed the massive electoral fraud, without providing any official record. The National Electoral Council (CNE) has validated the results in a ‘definitive, unrestricted and unequivocal’ way.
A fraud. After losing the 28 July elections to Edmundo Gonzalez by a resounding 30/70, the new Caribbean Hitler has deployed a complementary terror campaign to show the ‘fascists’ in the opposition that he will not relinquish power. Communism is terror, hunger and death. And it always will be.
In Cuba it works. It still does. Anyone who opposes the regime (man, woman, child, elderly, homosexual, LGTBI) is a counter-revolutionary and therefore must be eliminated. There are 2,000 generals in the revolutionary army - more than the US and the EU combined - as the backbone of the defence of the ‘1st Caribbean Reich of 1,000 years’.
Tens of thousands of officers, non-commissioned officers and paramilitaries paid and protected by the military leadership and the national government have sworn to defend to the death the system established, between two centuries, by Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, even if it means exterminating half of the subjects who have not yet left the country.
The ‘Chavista Hitler Youth’ charge 100 euros for each ‘protester’. The ‘patriotic cooperators’ are promoted to a higher rank with 15 ‘snitching services’. And what's more, they get paid holidays. Their dream is to become a general. To the
The Bolivarian diaspora is the largest in the world, even larger than that of Syria, a country at war for two decades. The UN, the US and the EU are demanding something simple from the dictator: that he show the polling station records to find out the truth.
Spain - so close to Maduro's ‘narco-democracy’ and so far from the democratic opposition - continues to defend the mediation of former president Rodríguez Zapatero. Forty trips to Venezuela to remain silent like a dead coward. Zapatero is as complicit in the hundreds of murders by the Chavista government as he is in the two thousand Venezuelans imprisoned, disappeared and tortured in the last 20 days.
The Pope's silence after sending a new nuncio to Caracas surprises no one. This week he told the president of Aragon, Jorge Azcon, that ‘he is very concerned’. Say it publicly, Holiness.
The ‘vertical’ prisons built underground in the detention centres of the secret police, the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN), with no windows, no natural light, serve to erode the will of those convicted without trial and to intimidate their families. Pure Leninist, Nazi-Socialist, Stalinist and Castroist terror. Communism always comes back. Venezuela is a prison 9 times bigger than Cuba.
Last Saturday, August 17th, tens of thousands of citizens from all over the world, from Sydney to Miami, from New York to Buenos Aires via London, Berlin, Paris, Rome and Madrid, took to the streets to tell Maduro and his corrupt government that ‘when fear dies, freedom is born’. Three hundred and fifty cities demanding the dictator to show the minutes of his defeat and to leave. And that he leaves. NO + MADURO!
The dictatorship will pass the first quarter century mark. The free world must react against this genocide.
To complete the week, the vice-president and secretary general of the PSOE, M. J. Montero has sown confusion between ERC and Junts. Pure theatre. Sánchez always pays the bills. The 15th Legislature is not in danger because the coup-maker Puigdemont must be saved.
From kilometre 0
The invitation of María Corina Machado (MCM) to protest in the streets against the satrap was tempting, especially after her declarations to Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, in EL MUNDO: ‘There will be no power sharing or new elections here. The 28th of July will be respected’. The Venezuelan people spoke loud and clear at the polls. And they want to collect their victory.
You can see it, you can feel it, Edmundo president!!! was one of the slogans most chanted by the 15,000 souls gathered at ‘kilometre 0’ in the capital of the Kingdom. The Venezuelan people shouted with as much rage as hope, ‘Venezuela Libertad! a dozen times. The clock that marks our lives began to count down the time of liberation.
The slogan was simple and the same for the whole universe: ‘For the freedom of the people of Venezuela’. Easy to understand. Venezuelans are very extroverted. I melted with them and felt like one of them. The rally turned into a party a few minutes after the sun retired to its bed at Mayor and Arenal. There was not a breeze in the air, but no one was moving. The desire for freedom for those who have lost it is an excessive ambition.
It didn't take Francisco León, the presenter, long to raise the spirits of the crowd. It was enough for him to say, ‘We are the biggest rally in the world!’ Then a tenor played ‘Alma Llanera’, accompanied by the audience. And the Puerta del Sol went wild.
And then Isabel Díaz Ayuso arrived. It was 20.32. Telemadrid news. For the Venezuelans in Madrid, Ayuso is a heroine. No one understands the rebelliousness of this people oppressed by a tyranny that has lasted five years like the president of Madrid.
‘We are here, at kilometre 0 to defend freedom, life and democracy in Venezuela’. She recalled the King defending in the Dominican Republic the return to democracy in this country and the ‘bloodbath’ announced by Maduro. (Much applause). Then, the popular leader took aim at the government and the left. ‘I ask them to explain why they allow tyranny; they are never on the side of democracy’, and she fired at Zapatero. ‘He has many interests there, many suitcases, what else is there that we don't know about? We are ashamed of his actions’. Those present erupted when he uttered these three words. ‘We are not afraid!’
The communion between the speaker and the audience was total. ‘This is not about socialism; life is worth nothing without freedom.’ And she continued, ‘The international community has to keep up the pressure until the tyrant falls.’ He did not stop there and demanded that the International Criminal Court (ICC) act against the dictator. Out with Maduro! was heard with relief and hope. Ayuso remembered the exiles (almost 8 million) and the prisoners and tortured.
When he named María Corina Machado, the congregation almost went into a trance. She is the heroine recognised by the rosaries offered by the ordinary people throughout the country in their caravan for Freedom. With the audience in raptures, she ended her rally, shooting straight to the hearts of the exiles. ‘Madrileños of Venezuela, in Spain and in the Community of Madrid you have your home’. ‘The time has come to put an end to corruption, to lies, to pain, to exile and to totalitarianism; thank you for being so brave’.
The public's response was withering as the president of the Madrilenians wrapped herself in the Venezuelan tricolour: ‘Ayuso, sister, Venezuela loves you!’.
The presenter introduced another star to heat up the atmosphere after Doña Isabel's fire. None other than the daughter of the winning president Edmundo González.
Carolina, read a direct statement from her father. She invited everyone to continue in the struggle and to demand that the will of the ballot box be fulfilled. Carolina, who lives in Madrid, broke down when the president-elect longed and felt the need to embrace her and her daughters.
There were three more high points in this Ibero-American rally. One, when dozens of citizens showed copies of their voting records, confirming that the fraud had been historic; another, when they shouted in chorus. ‘We won't give up, we have the results!’ and the third when they repeated this conviction: ’The results don't lie; they won't steal the elections!
No tyrant will be able to bend the will of a people with so much faith, who have not forgotten the way back home to win the freedom snatched by narco-terrorists.
The left with dictatorships
Sumar, the government's majority partner, called for the proclamation of Maduro as president-elect from minute one. Without the count being finished. There was the official mourner of Chávez and Castro, Yolanda Díaz, legitimising the vote rigging. And her squire, also a communist, Enrique Santiago, giving lessons in popular democracy, declaring that ‘showing the minutes is typical of the extreme right’. Long live transparency! These are the same people who support Cuba, Nicaragua, Putin's invasion of Ukraine and are shamefully silent when Sánchez hands over the Sahara to Morocco without knowing why.
The socialists in government have not condemned the fraud. They have protected it by exculpating J. L. Rodríguez Zapatero, Maduro's favourite hitman. The Foreign Minister's appearance in the Senate was pathetic: dialogue with both sides - as if criminals and victims could be equated - and asking (with a small mouth) for the minutes to be shown. Spain still does not recognise the opposition's victory while ‘valuing and appreciating’ ZP's work.
MCM responded to Albares that ‘Zapatero is only an agent of Chavism’. The former president of the Spanish government boycotted the Puebla Group's pronouncement in favour of recounting the votes and prevented the OAS (Organisation of American States) from condemning the outrage. He has not been swallowed up by the earth. He will be resting on the other side of hell.
The unspeakable interests of ZP-Sánchez with Venezuela (corruption of Ambassador Morodo and family; Delcy's suitcases, the bailout of payments to Globalia, subsidies to the Plus Ultra airline, the Falcon trips to Santo Domingo and a long etcetera, would explain the complicit silence of this government that does not want Maduro to leave.
The fact that Spain has taken charge of the interests of the D.R. in Caracas revalidates the power of La Moncloa and the ascendancy of Brasilia in taking charge of Argentine affairs after Milei's denunciations. We are talking about corruption and drug trafficking, the two pillars of the ‘Madurista’ regime.
Venezuela subsidised Podemos to dynamite democracy in Europe. Today it accumulates debts of 4.6 million euros, which MEP Montero, an illustrious citizen decorated, like her husband Pablo Iglesias, with the Order of Carlos III ‘for her services to Spain and the Crown’, will certainly not pay. Nor will Monedero, the ideologue of ALBA's cryptocurrencies, pay the debt for wastefulness. Manda Trillos!
The communist left, with Lula, Pietro and AMLO, proposed a masterstroke for imbeciles: repeat the elections. Maria Corina was categorical: No! How many times will the repetition be necessary? Once, twice, three, four... even five? The idea also offended the emperor Nero Maduro. AMLO dropped the idea at the last minute for a simple reason: the Mexican narco already dominates the Colombian cartels and supports the Bolivarian government in Caracas. And Pietro is also silent because the tenant of the Miraflores Palace is the intermediary in the dialogue between the Colombian government and the guerrillas.
The agreement reached by the US, the EU, Argentina and Morocco to have the electoral records verified by independent experts has not taken immediate effect. The West cannot let Venezuela become another Cuba in the New Continent. While the ‘people's president’ spreads terror throughout the nation, he has commissioned the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) to issue an opinion glorifying his unappealable and inexplicable victory. And inexplicable. This time the accountants are Chinese experts, arrived via Havana.
At the same time, the attorney general has accused the ‘alma mater’ of this return to democracy, MCM, of ‘being intellectually responsible for more than 100 murders’. Communists are never responsible for anything.
A little more, and he ends up prosecuting her for the arrests and torture. Bullets and bruises - electric shocks and bathtubs aside - always tell a story of cruelty. In the last few hours, civil servants have been targeted. One click on any opposition comment and you are fired and jailed.
I know that demonstrations and pronouncements do nothing against dictators, but it is time to go all the way. There is no turning back now. Time in Venezuela is measured in lives lost.
Hunger, death and exile. In Madrid, we are brushing against the hope of change. We feel the pain of separated families, the impotence of not having electricity, water or food. But now, precisely now, we want the will of the people to be respected. On 28July Edmundo González won. Venezuela won.
On a national level
When the president takes a holiday, the country comes to a standstill. For the first nine days, the president and his family enjoyed anonymity. Fifteen days later, we have not been able to find out where they rested from so much political and legal hustle and bustle. And then, they are not ashamed to talk about transparency. In La Mareta, Sánchez received the MHP Salvador Illa. And the illustrious disappeared Rodríguez Zapatero. What a trio!
Even Borrell has had to admit that his party colleague is playing with the separatist cards. Depoliticising the Mossos by resurrecting Trapero is a mockery of those who voted for him and those who did not.
We know nothing about the Economic Agreement (the singular financing) signed between PSC and ERC. This ‘Catalan cuponazo’ seems to have been dynamited by the vice-president and deputy secretary general of the PSOE, MJ Montero. ‘The agreement has nothing to do neither with the Basque quota nor with the Navarrese improvement’; this has outraged ERC and above all Junts. ‘Either they comply or the president calls elections’.
The fire of the loquacious finance minister will need the help of a hundred members of the media EMU. This is what they called coexistence. To lie. Let's trust the King Midas of La Moncloa to pay for the whole party. Illa's mandate will cost us dearly.
In the doctor's absence and with his consent, ministers Puente and Bolaños took it upon themselves to muddy up the Supreme Court, accusing Judge Llarena in particular of ‘overstepping his bounds’ in not applying the Amnesty Law. It is yet another low blow to the judiciary. Even the bi-escapist Puigdemont has already told the truth: he never wanted to enter the Parliament.
After denouncing the judge handling the embezzlement case because he ‘slows down his case’, he expects Conde Pumpido to ‘apply the amnesty in his vein’ because ‘his human rights have been violated’. Another habitual offender wounded in his honour. Not in his wallet. They never remember the judicial delay of the Pujol saga.
Puente, between one hole and another, takes refuge in freedom of expression to criticise the performance and humiliate the Supreme Court while his trains reach the highest levels of delays to the despair of passengers. Punctuality has dropped 35 points during his tenure.
Bolaños, so quiet after the escape of the Junts coup-maker, is working along the same lines as his colleague in the Governing Council: the TC will fix everything. That is to say, it will exonerate the criminals as it did with the EREs of Andalusia.
They follow the supreme leader's line that he already advanced to Emiliano García-Page in his summary of the political course: ‘The High Court will sentence that the Amnesty Law is totally constitutional’. The seven judges of the PSOE have already decided. To paraphrase Spinoza -allow the similarity- ‘Sánchez is everything and everything is Sánchez’.
And what can we say about the General Council of the Judiciary: they have met four times to appoint a president and there are no majorities until Mr Conde's ‘protégée’ emerges. The ‘progressive’ sociatas have boycotted a communiqué protesting against the interference of the Puente-Bolaños duo. In six months there will be no report to reform the law. Sánchez lies and wins. The PP, a fool for admitting the 10/10 algorithm after winning the 23-J elections.
Even the Prosecutor's Office of the ineffable Álvaro García - what a delirium - has reproached the State Attorney's Office for defending the interests of the undersecretary of Puente's ministry, accused of being part of the Koldo plot. The state defending an alleged criminal.
When September arrives
Let's change the subject, already in the headlines: Spanish debt rises to 1.265 trillion euros. 14,000 million in June alone. Unemployment rises by 168,000 people in the middle of August. For the secretary general of Comisiones Obreras, Pepe Álvarez, the solution is to raise taxes, not to lower public spending.
Trade union wastefulness is not in keeping with the ethics and austerity that we learned under President Adolfo Suárez.
Deaths due to domestic violence are multiplying with the excessive heat. The case of the Ertzaina arrested for beating his wife and daughter and reconverted into a woman thanks to the Montero law (Ilustrísima Señora doña Irene), confirms the irresponsibility of these deputies who are law dealers, not jurists.
The double murder of the two women who were partners of the former number 2 of the National Police in Catalonia, Juan Fortuny, and his own murder show that the world is living on a knife's edge. He has been stripped of his decorations. Has such a guy become violent after retirement? The question is another: who in Spain dares to denounce a commissioner?
The death of Mateo the little boy stabbed in Mocejón (Toledo) has generated a rosary of hatred on social networks without waiting for the medical authority to diagnose that the young murderer and confessed killer needed help to balance his mental health. Mental health is the great illness of our time.
To top it all off, the Parity Law has come into force which, due to a ‘technical error’ in the Ministry of Equality and the Ministry of the Presidency, which is the one that finally approves the texts, will allow employers to dismiss women who request permission to reconcile their working life. Neither a resignation nor an apology. This is the ‘differential fact’ of this government: the legislative botch-up.
And speaking of Equality, where are the 8-M girls supporting Fabiola Yáñez? Where are the girls of the 8-M supporting Fabiola Yáñez, ‘sister, I believe you’, after her ex-husband Alberto Fernández accused her of physically and psychologically abusing her? They can sit back and wait. They keep quiet like bitches.
Come September, the president will still be dealing with his wife's and his brother's open legal proceedings. Immigration is a major problem in our society. The government has no project and Sánchez will patch up the issue by travelling to West Africa to bless the corrupt governments of the Atlantic with European money. It is striking that he does not go to Morocco when 63% of the unaccompanied minors arriving in the Canary Islands come from our southern neighbour.
Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo will finally be received by the Holy Roman Emperor of the Socialist International, Don Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón. He will blame the CCAA of the PP for inhumanity and accuse them of racism and xenophobia. He will announce a Summit of Presidents and will gain another month to do nothing.
The PP prepares a convention of all the ‘barons and countesses’ of its kingdoms. This summer they have discovered that ‘they see possible a pact between the Spain that empties and the Spain that fills’. A profound working philosophy. We await their proposals on serious problems such as immigration, unemployment, rents, the fiscal pact with Catalonia, health, education and excessive state spending.
The necessary ceasefire agreement in Gaza and the handing over of hostages to Israel hangs on one more bullet: Hamas. They will say no, so that Trump can return to power in the United States.
Kamala Harris and her Tim Walz have pushed the November presidential race in Chicago. Biden has bowed out like a gentleman admitting he's too old for this sort of thing; the Clintons support the cause despite Hillary's failure to reach The White House; and the Obamas gave Kamala the campaign slogan. ‘Yes, she can.
In this second half of August, Ukraine continues to ‘invade’ Russia. Glory to the Ukrainian army, which has not discussed the news with NATO to avoid leaks.
‘When September comes everything will be wonderful’, as Gelu, María de los Ángeles Rodríguez (Granada 1945) sang in 1962. Before autumn invades us, let us prepare ourselves to pass the ever-pending subjects - and even more so now - of solidarity and equality. The Constitution is our north.
I would be satisfied if Parliament could agree to introduce political lies as a crime in the Penal Code. Happy course. Viva Venezuela Libre!
Antonio REGALADO directs BAHÍA DE ÍTACA at.
Aregaladorodriguez.blogspot.com