This Sunday, July 28, Venezuelans will make official their decision to remove Nicolás Maduro from power. It has been a campaign under absolutely disadvantageous conditions for the Unitary Platform: without resources, with persecution, censorship, repression and intimidation that have culminated, despite the tyranny, strengthening the struggle and collaborating in the construction of an epic.
It has been a process of showing strength for the Venezuelans. Nicolás Maduro must be surprised. By disqualifying Maria Corina Machado His ego, smacked by power, saw it as an easy way to confront Edmundo González. He did not understand that Venezuelans took control of these elections and turned them into a process of citizens against him, fed up with so much humiliation, in need of restoring their families, of regaining their freedom.
It is a campaign that has moved me, I confess. I have never seen so much pain expressed and at the same time so much will and determination to make life different. “I have faith that I will go back to eating soup on Sundays with my boys,” said a poor and honorable man in a broken voice at the campaign event in Maracaibo. That sums up this campaign. That, and listening to Venezuelans tirelessly tell María Corina Machado a declaration of great meaning: “I love you.” Unlike a traditional campaign, people do not ask, they give.
It is striking that Maduro has the nerve to blame the opposition for the ills that can only be attributed to 25 years of Chavismo’s misfortune. And while Maduro promises lies that no one believes, María Corina Machado and the next president, Edmundo González Urrutia, offer an embrace and sacrifice. In addition, the discourse of both has reaffirmed the decision to offer an alternative to those who once believed in Chavismo or to those who were forced under pressure to join its ranks. The transition is ready.
It must be said: the opposition leadership has been strengthened in this process. With María Corina Machado at the head, the political parties of the unitary platform have decisively contributed to organizing the route to the recovery of freedom, demonstrating that unity is the only way to succeed in ousting from power a dictator who operates with leeches.
We Venezuelans are facing the candidate of organized crime and tyranny. In part, that explains why this campaign has ended up being a spiritual struggle, which has made it immensely powerful. The citizenry has identified those responsible for their suffering and knows that they embody the evil that has deliberately harmed them with cruelty.
It has also been too long. In these 11 years of Maduro’s government, Venezuelans have been mutilated and humiliated, have suffered hunger and have seen their loved ones die for lack of assistance, while a corrupt elite has increased their personal fortunes with amounts that would pay off the debt of a country.
This dictatorship has been taking everything from Venezuelans. And it expects to continue scraping the bottom of the pot. The question is whether it can continue doing so. In recent weeks we have seen how much Maduro’s weakness has been exposed by the decision of a country to execrate those who have trampled on it. That is why he desperately launched the extreme move of trying to scare the electorate by announcing a bloodbath. And he was wrong again. While the people disdainfully ignored the threat, the world’s leaders – including his natural allies – have begun to treat him as an unpresentable stinker.
No one rules out Maduro trying to commit electoral fraud, but it will be difficult for him. Not knowing the will of millions makes it impossible for him to prolong his stay in Miraflores. At this point, his fragility has become undeniable. The entire world has witnessed that María Corina is the one anointed by the will of the people.
Maduro has been in vain of the local censorship that he has extended to international media. The best reporter has been the ordinary citizen. The one who records the governor of Carabobo, Rafael Lacava, giving instructions at the recent event in Valencia to make a montage with the few officials in attendance giving instructions to make it seem as if the event was less painful. Or a video from his own team in which Maduro scolds Freddy Bernal because it looked bad that there were so few people and so many cameras. Or the laughter in the background of those who enjoy watching the people’s affront, leaving them alone.
Now it is Nicolasito who is talking about acknowledging defeat. And it is the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, who is asking the defeated man to retire and rest. In other words, Nicolas, rest in peace.
