After a fraudulent election, Nicolás Maduro intensifies his oppression.
Something remarkable happened in Venezuela on July 28: Opposition candidate Edmundo González beat socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro in the presidential election. In a country that has for a quarter century become submerged in an increasingly totalitarian regime—where the ruling socialist party has total media control, bribes and forces welfare recipients to vote for it, and which even barred almost all Venezuelans abroad from voting—González received nearly 70 percent of the vote.
Obviously, Maduro didn’t recognize his loss. Instead, his regime made up a fake result. But Venezuelans proved they are desperate for change—and unafraid of their rulers. The question that remains is how to remove Maduro from power.
Venezuela is an extraordinary country in many ways. It is blessed with the largest proven oil reserves on the planet and boasts some of the most wonderful natural marvels, including the world’s tallest waterfall and the only permanent lightning. After the Second World War, Venezuela became a beacon of freedom, welcoming Europeans fleeing the war-torn continent, my grandparents among them. When it became democratic in 1958, Venezuela welcomed people persecuted by dictatorships in Cuba, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Syria, as well as those fleeing conflict caused by communist guerrillas in Colombia and civil war in Lebanon. Over the second half of the 20th century, it became a free and rich country.
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Daniel Di Martino is a graduate fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a Ph.D. student in economics at Columbia University, and the founder of the Dissident Project, a speakers’ bureau for young immigrants from socialist countries.
Photo by Carlos Landaeta/AFP/Getty Images