The Peruvian government announced Tuesday that it would recognize 74-year-old former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez as Venezuela’s next president, following a fake presidential election on Sunday that socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro claimed was won.
Peruvian Foreign Minister Javier González Olaechea Said The Peruvian government’s official position is to recognize Gonzalez as Venezuela’s next president, local radio station RPP reported.
“It is clear that the intent to defraud is there, they were already on the screen from the first count on Sunday. [and] “The margin was more than 30 points in favor of Mr. Gonzalez, it was impossible to overturn and Mr. Gonzalez is the next president of Venezuela,” he told RPP.
Peru’s foreign minister said his government would not rule out considering Maduro the “de facto government” in January 2025, when Venezuela’s next six-year presidential term is due to begin.
“He will be the president until the end of his term and will become the de facto government at the end of his term,” he said.
Gonzalez Olaechea Said State-run Peruvian Television reported that Peru’s view that González should be the next president was “shared by many countries, governments and international organizations.”
The Peruvian government’s announcement is reminiscent of what happened in Venezuela after a similar fake election in 2019, when many Western countries did not recognize Maduro’s claimed victory and instead declared former National Assembly speaker Juan Guaido the country’s president. Constitutionally, Guaido became president due to the “breakdown of democratic order.” Despite being Venezuela’s legitimate president and internationally recognized by some 50 countries, Guaido was unable to oust Maduro or exercise any meaningful authority during his term, leading to his removal from office in late 2022 and eventual exile in Florida in 2023.
Venezuela is experiencing a new political crisis and a wave of protests against the socialist Maduro regime in the aftermath of the fake presidential elections on July 28. The “elections” were marked by a series of actions taken by the socialists to ensure that the elections were far from free and fair. dateThe day marked the 70th anniversary of the birth of socialist dictator Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013.
A vandalized statue of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lies next to a pedestal in Valencia, Venezuela, on Tuesday, July 31, 2024, a day after people protested official election results that certified the victory of current President Nicolas Maduro, a protege of Chavez. (Jacinto Oliveros/Associated Press)
In this sham election, Maduro was pitted against eight handpicked “opposition” rivals and Gonzalez, the only legitimate opposition candidate on the ballot. Maduro appeared on the ballot 13 times.
Venezuela’s National Electoral Center (CNE) Announced Early Monday morning, just after midnight on election day, it was reported that Maduro had “won” the sham election with 51 percent of the vote. The CNE then rushed to certify Maduro’s “victory” on Tuesday, even though the ruling Socialist-backed electoral commission had yet to release any final results as of this writing.
Venezuela’s opposition is vehemently contesting the election results. Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was not allowed to run in the election despite being the winner of the opposition primary, said on Monday that the opposition has a confirmed vote tally from Sunday’s fake election and can prove that González won and that Maduro is trying to steal the election.
The situation has sparked violent protests, to which Maduro’s repressive regime has responded. Respond with violence immediately. Machado Condemned On Wednesday morning, it said 16 people had been killed, 177 had been arbitrarily detained and 11 had been forcibly disappeared as a result of the Maduro regime’s crackdown.
Because the CNE did not release the official final results, the United States and several other countries have questioned the sham election and called on Venezuelan authorities to conduct a transparent recount of the votes. Other countries, including Argentina and Chile, have said they will not recognize Maduro’s victory. At the time of writing, only Peru has recognized González as the next president.
Maduro’s government Announced The Argentine government announced on Monday that it was severing diplomatic ties with seven countries – Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay – that have questioned the election fraud.
Maduro has ruled Venezuela since 2013, after the late socialist dictator Hugo Chavez named him his successor just weeks before his death from cancer in March that year. In 2018, Maduro staged a rigged election. election That helped him hang on to power for a second six-year term. As in Sunday’s sham election, in the 2018 election Maduro “fought” handpicked “opposition” rivals.
The fraudulent 2018 elections were not recognized by much of the free world or by Venezuela’s last democratically elected institution, the then opposition-led National Assembly. Following President Maduro’s refusal to step down at the end of his first term in January 2019, the National Assembly acted in accordance with what the Venezuelan Constitution defines as a “break in the democratic order” and Designated Juan Guaido, who was then speaker of Congress and Venezuela’s legitimate interim president.
Guaido’s interim government has vowed to overthrow Maduro’s illegitimate rule, establish an interim government, hold free elections and restore democracy to Venezuela. The interim government has been internationally recognized by the United States, Canada, the European Union and 50 other countries.
Countries that supported the interim government, including the United States and the United Kingdom, granted it control over Venezuela’s frozen overseas assets, preventing the socialist regime from using them to fund itself or to repress the Venezuelan people.
Despite international support, the Guaidó regime has never exercised any power in Venezuela and has essentially remained a symbolic institution throughout its existence. By 2020, the majority of Venezuelans Stop Trust in Guaido’s government is growing after it has repeatedly failed to deliver results toward restoring democracy in the country.
The interim government was initially meant to be short-lived and last until the country could hold free elections, but after nearly three years in power it has failed to achieve any of its goals: Maduro was never ousted, an interim government was never formed, and no free elections were ever held in the country.
President Guaido’s term Dissolved The interim government was dissolved in December 2022 after the opposition-led National Assembly voted, via a technically glitched Zoom meeting, not to extend President Maduro’s term by one year. The dissolution came two years after Maduro’s government ousted the opposition-led Congress and replaced it with socialist lawmakers, forcing most opposition lawmakers to flee the country.
Juan Guaido is currently living in exile in Florida, having relocated there in April under pressure from Colombian authorities. Deportation He was on his way to Miami after attempting to meet with an international delegation attending a conference on Venezuela organized by Colombia’s then radical leftist president, Gustavo Petro.
Christian K. Caruso is a Venezuelan author documenting life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter. here.
