This is not the first time that Washington has used elections to destabilize a country. It did it in 1990 in Nicaragua with Violetta Chamorro’s UNO party in order to disrupt the Sandinista revolution where it managed to take power even for one term from the Sandinistas. Suddenly, Ortega regained power later, but it is not the same because imperialism has managed to unbalance the State of Nicaragua until today, where the revolution has not really advanced to help the people.
This is the same experience that the progressive people of Venezuela are having today after the elections of July 28, 2024. It is a trap that imperialism prepares as soon as you enter the electoral game; whether you win honestly, it does not care. It uses the result of the elections to cry electoral fraud and thus take advantage to destabilize the country. So that it can initiate a period of political unrest to try to overthrow the progressive government of Maduro.
In 1990, during the first democratic elections held in Haiti, the American candidate Marc Bazin was rejected by the people since the popular masses voted in droves for their candidate Jean-Bertrand Aristide. On election day, former American President Jimmy Carter suggested to Aristide that it would be better to withdraw, in a sense resign, to pass the victory to Bazin. Aristide, who at that time was very lucid and believed in the people, replied to Carter: to go and tell the people this story himself. Carter and his team did not take the chance for fear of the popular reaction. But even before Aristide was sworn in, the imperialists attempted a coup d’état with the macoutes under the leadership of Roger Lafontant. And seven months later, they gave the final blow by orchestrating a bloody coup d’état to overthrow the regime.
In the 2000 elections in Haiti, the Haitian people experienced another scenario of destabilization of imperialism by its local agents. Since they could not prevent the people’s candidate, the same Aristide from participating in the elections, they tried to boycott him but failed to do so.
But after the results of the Provisional Electoral Council, the pro-imperialist political class shouted with one voice: that the elections were false while accompanying their lie with an atmosphere of high-level violence. Through the American embassy in Haiti, USAID, the Democratic Party through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) channel and the Republicans with the International Republican Institute (IRI) organized different groups such as that of Baker and Apaid’s Group 184, the Collectif Non of Magalie Comeau Denis and Lyonel Trouillot then they hired some university teachers such as Camille Charlmers, Josué Mérilien and many others to divert university youth so that they join the bourgeoisie in the streets to demand the departure of Aristide. Not to mention the military support of this movement under the leadership of former police commissioner Guy Philippe.
In the 2010 elections, the Provisional Electoral Council announced the election results, and then a few minutes later the US embassy in a statement said it was not the result they expected.
It was the American Secretary of State under the Democratic administration of Barrack Obama/Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, who personally came to Haiti to say that it was the candidate Michel Martelly who should go to the second round with the winner of the first round, Ms. Mirlande Manigat… Since then, Haiti has fallen into disarray and it has only gotten worse to this day!
This is why we say to the United States government, Stop! What they did in Haiti, must not be repeated in Venezuela. They want to put Venezuela in the same deplorable state as Haiti by using the Venezuelan right-wing opposition with now their puppet Maria Corina Machado and her candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia in the presidential election to initiate yet another coup d’état to destabilize the Venezuelan state so that they can plunder their wealth and natural resources.
They tried for a good period with Juan Guaido, it did not bear fruit. Now they are going to use these electoral jousts to pave the way for a new regime change operation. A new attempt to remove President Nicolas Maduro by force on the basis of an alleged illegitimacy of the results. Already the Western media has begun to spread a narrative that presents the election as inevitably fraudulent.
In this regard, the working people of Venezuela must go all the way in their struggle against the imperialist powers. Venezuela must not be treated like Haiti. May the Venezuelan people remain firm and strong to defend their country and the elected president Nicolas Maduro until the final victory.
All our solidarity with the people and government of the Bolivarian Revolution!
