Fraud in Venezuela

But, if I may say so, what is worse is the boasting, the swagger, the defiant and challenging attitude of a Nicolás Maduro who plays his role as the visible head of the Chavista network linked to crime and drug trafficking, who shows he is not willing to give up power and announces his intention to follow in Nicaragua's footsteps with a new constitution to take away even more rights from citizens.

Maduro brought forward the time scheduled for the oath of office to prevent any attempt at protest or anything more serious in the Armed Forces that some had insisted on dreaming up so that Venezuela could emerge from an iron-fisted and despicable dictatorship that has driven millions of Venezuelans into misery and caused more than 7 million people to go into exile.

It was pathetic to see how the few high-profile guests arrived late to the hall of the National Assembly where Nicolás Maduro delivered his hour-and-a-half speech, which he himself interrupted to welcome another dictator, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, who arrived late, as did another one surprised by the time change, the president of the Russian Duma, Vladimir Putin's special envoy.

To make matters worse, Maduro interrupted his allegations and bluster against the opposition, the European Union and the United States to demand that his foreign guests be provided with simultaneous translation equipment.

Pathetic details of a shameful event, a television pantomime that means the continuation of the Chavista dictatorship for another six years if no one can remedy it. It is clear that the Chavistas' show of force and disregard for the electoral results are a very bad omen, as long as the Armed Forces, their top commanders, continue to be privileged by the regime and take advantage of their situation and do not want to risk being held accountable for the repression and murders that have taken place in Venezuela in recent years. 

The opposition takes popular support from the ballot boxes to the streets, but María Corina Machado goes into hiding to guarantee her integrity and the elected president Edmundo González cannot get to Caracas to be sworn in as president. What a shame, embarrassment, indignation, mockery of the Venezuelan people, of freedom, of democracy and of those who negotiated with the chavistas and allowed the indecent fraud to go unpunished.