Expert Analysis
By Eduardo Kohn, B’nai B’rith Director of Latin American Affairs
It is not new for the Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro to be accused of attempting to steal a presidential election, but the evidence for such allegations has never been quite so overwhelming as it happened on July 28. Evidence produced by the opposition, academics and media organizations first, and confirmed by the United Nations, the European Union and tens of more countries all over the world afterward, have shown that the Venezuelan dictator clearly and decisively lost the election to the opposition candidate, retired diplomat and a well-known democrat, Edmundo González.
Several countries and international organizations like the EU and OAS (Organization of American States) have already recognized González’s victory, but countries with left-wing governments sympathetic to Maduro (Brazil, Colombia and Mexico) first demanded proof of his alleged victory and more than a month later, even not recognizing Maduro´s alleged victory, they do not back González and call for new elections, which is insulting for the Venezuelan people who voted against the dictator and challenging the state terrorism which rules the country. In addition, this is shameful because the three presidents (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Gustavo Petro of Colombia and Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico) know that Maduro will stay in power, backed by Iran, Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Bolivia and Nicaragua.
From the start, the electoral process was plagued by irregularities, threats and banning of those opposed to the dictator, with no possibility for the opposition to use radio or TV stations, which are all in the hands of the regime. The dictatorship blocked candidates from running, such as the opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was then replaced by González, and made it virtually impossible for eight million Venezuelans living abroad to vote. Dozens of opposition members were arrested during the campaign, and international observers were either blocked or disinvited from monitoring the vote.
This time, the opposition had prepared itself for the fraud to come. Everybody knew that Maduro’s last resort might be to refuse to recognize the results and claim some fake numbers. So, the opposition designed a system to ensure that it would have proof of how the voting went.
About four hours after voting ended, the government-controlled national electoral council declared victory for Maduro, eventually stating he had won nearly 52% of the vote to González’s 43%.
But thousands of opposition volunteers had managed to collect about 80% of the voting tallies from polling stations, which showed a clear victory for González, with 67% over Maduro’s 30%.
Two different independent analyses, from the Associated Press and The Washington Post, reached similar conclusions. Walter R. Mebane, Jr., an election forensics professor at the University of Michigan, analyzed the opposition’s voting tallies and concluded that they were legitimate. The U.S. State Department determined that it would be nearly impossible to falsify the tallies that were rapidly compiled and uploaded. Maduro ordered the fake electoral council to send the false results to the Supreme Court, whose members are appointed by the dictatorship and the court confirmed the so-called Maduro victory. The military has reaffirmed its support for Maduro, so the diplomatic pressure is, so far, a failure. The regime has killed protesters in the streets, has sent to prison to be tortured several hundred of what Maduro calls “opposition,” and the leader María Corina Machado is hiding and claiming to the world that Venezuela needs help to recover its freedom.
After weeks of rallies and repression, Maduro said in a television address: “All the communication power of Zionism, which controls all the social networks, the satellites and all the power is behind this coup d’état.”
It is for real that Maduro is among a broad cohort of Latin American leaders who are viciously critical of Israel and strong supporters of Hamas, but the using of anti-Semitic vitriol to justify the legitimacy of his electoral fraud is one step forward in the Jew-hatred policies led by Maduro and Cuba but strongly supported by other leaders like Lula and Petro.
Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, tweeted: “Maduro’s absurd claim that Jews are behind election protests in Venezuela is anti-Semitic and unacceptable. The Venezuelan people have gone to the streets to peacefully call for their votes to be counted. We reject all forms of anti-Semitism, and the use of these types of age-old tropes fans the flames of Jew hatred in Latin America and throughout the world.”
We need to be clear: when Maduro talks about “Zionists” he means Jewish caricatures: fat, cigar-smoking, money-counting Jews sitting in dark rooms, plotting how to depose him. He is anti-Semitic, as his mentor and predecessor Hugo Chavez was. And he knows that many Latin American presidents and leftist parties endorse his statements. All of them are taking the region back to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Libels are one of the weapons current anti-Semitism is using in Latin America.
Nobody should be surprised by the anti-Semitic statement of the Venezuelan dictator. In February on his TV program, Maduro said: “Modern Israel enjoys the same encouragement, the same funding, and the same support of the collective West like Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany before the World War II. Powerful family names in the U.S., Europe and London supported and celebrated Hitler’s arrival to power in 1933. They encouraged him and allowed him to persecute Jews.” And he added: “The criminal military apparatus of the State of Israel also has the same encouragement, the same funding, and the same support of the West. As President Lula da Silva said, the Israeli government is doing the same thing to the Palestinians that Hitler did to the Jewish people.”
It was in February that Lula delivered the remarks Maduro mentioned, describing Israel’s military action against Hamas in Gaza as “genocide” and “slaughter.” Lula has been the inspiration for others, including Petro. The Colombian president broke relations with Israel. Lula never apologized to Israel for his insane insults, and diplomatic relations between both countries are frozen. The Mexican president, Lopez Obrador, supported Lula in his brutal attacks against the Jewish people.
It is ironic that today, OAS is trying to get a strong support against the electoral fraud perpetrated by Maduro, and the three governments that are not backing any diplomatic action coming out from OAS are Colombia, Brazil and Mexico. The rest of the world looks too busy to give more time and attention to the Venezuelan tragedy, so Maduro, with the Cuban forces in the country acting as militias, the weapons he has received from Russia, the funding he has gotten from China and the political support of these three governments plus North Korea, feels so far, safe and strong.
And to show that he does feel backed and protected, Maduro has ordered the arrest of Edmundo González saying that he has committed “serious crimes.”
Not all the OAS members have rejected Maduro´s outrageous decision. It shows, once more, the difficulties to fight the Venezuelan dictatorship.
Today, no one can see a light, even a small light, at the end of the tunnel.
Eduardo Kohn, Ph.D., has been the B’nai B’rith International Director of Latin American Affairs since 1984. Before joining B’nai B’rith, he worked for the Israeli embassy in Uruguay, the Israel-Uruguay Chamber of Commerce and Hebrew College in Montevideo. He is a published author of “Zionism, 100 years of Theodor Herzl,” and writes op-eds for publications throughout Latin America. He graduated from the State University of Uruguay with a doctorate in diplomacy and international affairs. To view some of his additional content, click here.