Skwawkbox has published a Twitter/X thread on renewed attacks on the integrity of Venezuela’s presidential election – and why they are politically-motivated, misleading propaganda and easily debunked:
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Fantastic reporting Skwawkbox. Thank you SW for making Skwawkbox happen.
You fully deserve your Leveson-compliant IMPRESS regulation and your 100/100 news reliability score from Newsguard.
900 foreign election observers can’t be wrong.
As we’ve seen over the past ten months, the US State Department, and the UK Foreign Office find it difficult to be right.
¡Viva Venezuela! ¡Solidaridad!
Yes in the USA there is an odd electoral college system and this means for example that Useless Clinton got 3m more votes than Loser Trump but lost.
Reform 1: US President to be elected by majority of popular vote.
Politicians in the US are sponsored by Big Businesses (and AIPAC) so who do they represent Big Business etc or citizens?
Reform 2: State Funding of candidates, could have limit of $100k so have to win on IDEAS not an advertising monopoly.
In the US the Democrats & Republicans don’t have party members.
Reform 3: Have party members who have branches, send resolutions and members make policy & have annual conferences instead of rallies.
In the UK judges etc get to the top on merit. In the US like the Supreme Court they are appointed politically so you get partisan law.
Reform 4: US to have an independent judiciary.
Send in a Left Wing Latin American Task Force to enable this.
Reform 5
Gaol any vested interest who undermines the democratic process
Reform 6
Gaol any politicians who deliberately mislead the electorate
Reform 7
Freeze MP’s pay and expenses for at least 10 years
A Forbes piece from over a decade ago does not gift Venuzuela a free pass. The reporting here rightly points out the vested international interests but that does not grant someone who might be regarded as an ideological fellow traveller carte blanche to dispense with the democtaric process. If Maduro were the leader of Ukraine then he would be subject to justified condemnation for the closing down of the opposition. Run the election again.
Important difference that makes your assessment meaningless Tim is:
* — From the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych (‘The Revolution of Dignity’ or Maidan Coup) in 2014 onwards, Ukraine has been a fully-controlled puppet of the US financed and used by it to achieve ruthless economic, geopolitical and military objectives,
* whereas the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela genuinely stands against the USA’s furtive and covert control of its politics, economics and geopolitical independence. The sanctions imposed by the US in punishment result in hyperinflation, a capital flight, currency controls, intense food shortages, 7m (or about 20% of population) needing to emigrate, etc., etc.
I’d suggest you look at the USA’s role in both countries before suggesting they can be compared or contrasted meaningfully. Ukraine and Venezuela both suffer from US interference and cannot therefore be assessed by ordinary standards.
qwertboi, both countries are subject to the whims of other powers’ foreign policy, and I appreciate that with respect to the US intervention it is clear that the two countries are dealt with very differently. My comparison was between the suppression of the opposition in Ukraine and that in Venezuela, both of which appear to be examples of executive overreach.
I’d suggest Tim, it depends on whose financing the opposition(s), what they say and their methods of opposition/organisation.
Re Venezuela, you’re a braver person than me if you trust (never mind, believe) any of the information being presented by the MSM corporate press. The anti-fascism legislation rushed through the Venezuelan Congress was not assessed impartially – or even reported – by the billionaires’ pro-US corporate press, which sees any opposition to President Nicolas Maduro as heroic anti-socialist freedom fighting. Sure, it might have been an authoritarian measure to weaken a justified and democratically-supported opposition, but it might not….
credit, Morning Star:
“Colombian President Gustavo Petro called on his ally Mr Maduro to release detailed vote counts of the weekend election.
“Posting on the X social media site he said: “The serious doubts that have arisen around the Venezuelan electoral process can lead its people to a deep, violent polarisation.
“I invite the Venezuelan government to allow the elections to end in peace, allowing a transparent vote count, with the counting of votes, and with the supervision of all the political forces of its country and professional international supervision.”
“Anti-government activists have attacked some of those election monitors, started fires and vandalised statues of the country’s iconic former leader Hugo Chavez.
“Mr Maduro said on Tuesday that he had allocated $10 million (£8 million) to support the victims of what he described as “fascist commandos.”
“The president said he had also “ordered the Bolivarian National Armed Forces and the police to develop a plan for patrolling and detaining these violent commando groups.”
“President Maduro accused opposition members Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez, the defeated right-wing candidate in the presidential election, of being behind the unrest.
“He said that the US-backed opposition intended to seize power by use of violence. So far they have burnt “the headquarters of the National Electoral Council (CNE), burning machines and attacking electoral officials.”
“But many of the more than 100 social and political organisations from 95 countries, in Venezuela to monitor the elections, have hailed the conduct of the poll.
“Among them was Suzanne Adely, the president of the US-based National Lawyers Guild (NLG). She said that the elections “were not only fair and transparent but also represented an example of popular civic participation.”
“The NLG said: “Despite the soundness of the electoral process, the US-backed opposition, with support from an anti-Maduro western press, has refused to accept the results, undermining the stability of Venezuela’s democracy.”
“Ajamu Baraka from the Black Alliance for Peace, who was also in Venezuela as an observer, posted on the X social media platform that he could “say with certainty that after systematic interference by anti-democratic forces in the US the election results represented the sentiments of the people who voted.”
Off topic:
Mike Sivier on Vox Political writes:
Is This Attack On Pensioners The Best Reeves Could Do?
Labour’s Chancellor is clawing back a claimed £22bn budget overspend – by cutting winter fuel payments for the elderly…
{U}niversal winter fuel payments – paid to all pensioners – will end. From this year onwards, only those receiving Pension Credit or other means-tested benefits will receive them. This is expected to save £1.4 billion and Age UK has called it a “social injustice”.
More than 11 million people receive these payments at the moment and most will now lose them. But most pensioners are Conservative voters so it is possible that Reeves thought this decision was a political risk worth taking…
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2024/07/29/is-this-attack-on-pensioners-the-best-reeves-could-do/
If you’re a child in poverty, you’ll be left to starve; if you’re old and on the new state pension, you’ll be left to freeze; and if you’re sick or disabled, you’ll be forced back into work. Never forget it was New Labour who brought in the dreadful Work Capability Assessment under Atos — an experience I wouldn’t ever wish to repeat.
….Staying on this theme, Richard Murphy…..
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/07/29/rachel-reeves-is-going-for-broke/
…..articulates the only possible conclusion from the position taken by Reeves and what passes for a “Labour” Government – particularly in light of the BoE being averse to cutting tinterest rates any time soon as it thinks meeting its inflation target is not good enough.
Apparently, the target now is to achieve the inflation target it in all sectors and wait for the wages lag from past inflation to end before there is any chance of ending current lethel interest rates levels.
The BoE is therefore, like the present administration voted in by around only around 20% of the electorate, dedicated to delivering recession in the UK, and are putting all their efforts into making sure that that happens, whether the populace like it or not.:
As Murphy notes…….
“………it is clear that Rachel Reeves will be going for broke. By this, I mean she is deliberately heading the country for a recession if these are the policies she proposes within the environment that the Bank of England is creating. No other outcome is likely, and that matters because Labour has predicated all return to normality in public services on delivering growth, of which there is no hope with Reeves carrying on as it appears she intends to start.
So, we face a mouldering state sector, failed public services, growing public dissatisfaction, disengagement with neoliberal government and the rise of the far-right as a result. Labour surely consigns itself to one term in office by doing this. The far-right must not be able to believe their luck. You could not lay the groundwork better for their progress than what Reeves and the Bank of England are doing.”
But……but………but…….but…….but………but……….”let’s wait for the budget”
We are seeing the Donald Trump logic from MSM, elections are only free when they get the result they want.
You can have any government you want, so long as it’s Neo-liberal.