COMMUNIST CUBANS STRANGLE FREEDOM IN VENEZUELA

COMMUNIST CUBANS STRANGLE FREEDOM IN VENEZUELA

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP://WWW.CINOPSBEGONEBLOGSPOT.COM - SAT., OCT. 21, 2017

THANK YOU MARY ANASTASIAS O'GRADY FOR YOUR ARTICLE IN "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL", OCT. 16,2017. "VENEZUELA'S LATEST ELECTION FRAUD."

"Venezuela held elections or its 23 state governors Sunday amid rising malnutrition, hunger, hyperinflation and looming debt crisis. In a fair contest candidates backed by dictator Nicolas Maduro would have been crushed. But Venezuela is now a police state at war with its people.

The truth has little chance... even less on a so-called election day... Maduro controls the national electoral council (CNE) and therefor has significant power to influence the outcome. In states the regime considers strategically important, he will put his thumb on the scale as necessary.... To interpret Sunday's results requires context. Remember this election was held - 10 months after its regular scheduled date - to ward of European Union sanctions. Maduro sought to showcase a fair election so that EU will back his continuing charade of "dialogue" with the opposition.

An international community that is paying attention won't fall for it. Sunday's exercise in the Cuban-packed dictatorship was a sham. ... He also seeks to legitimize his illegal "constituent assembly," elected on July 30 - from an unchallenged list of candidates - to replace to replace the legislature and rewrite the constitution....

The fraud was under way long before the first vote was counted. The dictatorship announced the election only a month in advance. Candidates rushed to submit their names under a five-day deadline. Later the regime decided to hold a day of the primaries. But when antigovernment candidates who lost the primaries asked to withdraw and throw their support to the primary winners, the regime refused to take their names of the ballot.

The effect was to spread the opposition vote among numerous candidates, all running against a single regime-backed candidate appearing on multiple party candidates. ... The government further weakened the opposition chances by relocating voting stations, some to dangerous neighborhoods. Some 274 polling stations were moved, creating public confusion. With no free press, candidates, who have few resources anyway, had a hard time getting their messages out. ...

Frustrating the public with tricks has been the modus operandi of the regime since Hugo Chavez first consolidated power in 2000s. ... The regime holds the trump card in that the CNE uses electronic voting machines, controls the voter registry, and does not allow the opposition audits....

Monkey business at the polls is only part of the story. There are more than 400 political prisoners in Venezuela today, including many sitting mayors. The regime has also forbidden some opposition candidacies on trumped-up charges so as to eliminate political talent from the competition. ...

In a country where most of the wealth is concentrated in the state owned oil industry, the regime and does often starve states governed by opponents of resources. Maduro won't hesitate to put the most effective opponent governors in jail... Even Maduro understands that he sits on a ticking time bomb. 

Last month he announced "Plan Rabbit." a project aimed at getting Venezuelan city dwellers to breed and eat the furry creatures as a source of protein. Sunday's phony balloting changes nothing. Venezuelan democracy is dead.      (About 120 freedom fighters have died.)

George H. Kubeck,

What occurred in Venezuela kept me awake at least 2 nights about 3 A.M. in the morning. I wrote:

1) Oct. 18th, Blessed Bishop Fulton Sheen speaks out on Venezuela, "The silence of the establishment, political parties, and elite CEOs. on what is happening in Venezuela is sickening and disgraceful... the lovers of Castro and Hugo Chavez in the movies industry are cowardly, shameful and subversive. This is to expect from these useful idiots of socialism and the communist party in the U.S.A.... be there only 5000 thousand masters of deceit and deception, potential Alger Hisses and Lee Harvey Oswalds."... (O'grady's article is a blueprint for any communist takeover.)