Amid empty polling stations, Venezuela claims 10 million Venezuelans voted to invade Guyana
Rigged, fraudy elections have been a way of life in Venezuela, ever since the late, unlamented Hugo Chavez "won" his recall referendum in 2004 with Jimmy Carter's stamp of approval and the opposition helplessly crying 'fraud.'
Yesterday, they held a nation-wide referendum to see if the public would like to go invade Guyana.
According to CNBC:
Venezuelans on Sunday voted to claim sovereignty over a large swathe of their oil-rich neighbor Guyana, marking the latest escalation in a long-standing territorial dispute between the countries.
Voters were asked if they supported the establishment of a new state in the contested area, known as the Essequibo. Venezuela’s National Electoral Council counted more than 10.5 million votes, the country’s local media stated. The number of voters were not specified, however, and the Associated Press reported that few voters could be seen at polling sites throughout the voting period.
The 61,600 square-mile Essequibo region makes up two-thirds of Guyana, and holds enormous oil reserves off its coast.
Sounds legit.
The regime says more than 98% of them were all in.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Venezuelan regime claims that nearly 10.5 million voters went to the polls in yesterday's referendum on the esequibo region. Truth is not even a million voted.<br><br>They make up the results. No election will be free in Venezuela while they're in power. Stop deluding yourselves. <a href="https://t.co/Kl9E9qGc31">https://t.co/Kl9E9qGc31</a></p>— Daniel Di Martino 🇺🇸🇻🇪 (@DanielDiMartino) <a href="https://twitter.com/DanielDiMartino/status/1731799261497463094?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 4, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Now maybe Texas can hold a referendum on whether it can take over Mexico. Or maybe the U.K. can hold one on whether to take back the U.S.
The whole premise of this is disgusting, given that Guyana's border has been long established and settled in international law.
But it does coincide with beating war drums coming from Caracas, calling for a takeover of 78% of Guyana's land based on old colonial-era boundaries and the rulings of reportedly drunk British diplomats.
They heard about the oil there. They saw what their ally Putin was able to get away with in Ukraine, with the international community largely ineffective in sending him packing from that nation. Heck, they've seen what their terrorist buddies Hamas have been able to get away with on the atrocity front. It shouldn't surprise anyone to see that they now think it's their turn to make the lunge for land.
And they are probably right that Joe Biden won't do jack about this, and leftist-run Brazil, which ought to care about the trash going on on its northern border, is unlikely to do anything more than position its troops and issue a stern warning. Like Maduro, both of those countries' leaders are in office by fraud. In this atmosphere, it should surprise no one that Venezuela is now out to get Guyana and thinks it can.
But first, the niceties of elections, which though the U.S. and everyone else knows are fraudulent, should still attract the support of the far left, which will now have a talking point for the MSNBC talking heads segments.
Here's what U.S.-based Venezuelan-American analyst Daniel DiMartino had to say:
The Maduro regime says that over 10 million Venezuelans voted in today's referendum on annexing the disputed territory controlled by neighboring nation Guyana.
— Daniel Di Martino 🇺🇸🇻🇪 (@DanielDiMartino) December 4, 2023
This is laughable. So you get an idea, Venezuela's peak total population was about 30 million and nearly 8 million have…
Empty polling stations, missing voters, doubts about how many such voters there even are now that so many have fled the country, and the Marxist government isn't even trying to make this "referendum" look honest. They're making it up, as DiMartino says:
It's not that dead people vote or there's ballot stuffing. They just don't bother with that. They make up the numbers.
They aren't even trying. And why should they? Leftists will defend them on the thinnest reeds no matter what they do, consuming it all, hook, line, and sinker, and regurgitating it for the talk shows.
"Essequibo is ours!" tweeted Chavista Vice President Delcy Rodriguez at the results.
And of course it was fraudy.
After all, International observers of any reputation won't go to them any more. Voting machine companies have pulled out.
During the Trump administration, the U.S. was firm and direct, calling these elections frauds outright and launching sanctions.
And don't forget that the Marxist socialist party in power's model for democratic governance is the perma-rule of Fidel Castro in Cuba, whose direction it takes.
But there are always Westerners who will go along with the facade.
It calls to mind the statement of the Carter Center, which, in the wake of Venezuela's fraud-filled 2004 referendum that it was the official observer on (appointed by George W. Bush), which in its final report declared something to the effect that with the exception of what went on in the totalization room, all was free and fair, blissfully unaware of how naive that sounded.
Well, now we can see what happens to twenty years of these kinds of elections -- demoralized people don't vote anymore, they flee the country, and then on the next election, the government just makes the numbers up.
Now that they have this referendum in hand and leftists around the world will cite it as the legitimate views of most Venezuelans, the Maduro regime will use it to justify its coming invasion of Guyana. The U.S. and Brazil, having had fraudy elections of their own on the Venezuela model, will not bring up that the whole thing was a fraudulent show pony. Venezuela in turn will say it's "about democracy" that they invade their neighbor and do whatever Hamas does, monkey-see, monkey-do.
Let's just say fraudy elections are dangerous with a weak, fraudulently elected Joe Biden serving as the leader of the free world. And with this one, the world just got a little more dangerous.
Image: Twitter screen shot