Anti-government protests continue in Venezuela in the aftermath of the nation’s July 28 sham presidential election. There is a call for a global protest against President Nicolás Maduro for this Saturday August 17.
Forces loyal to Maduro arrested more 2,000 people for demonstrating against the president, and at least 26 people have been killed in the protests.
There is overwhelming evidence Maduro lost the vote by a more than two-to-one margin, yet he is continuing to plan for a January inauguration to continue as the leader of the socialist nation.
Maduro has called on Venezuelans to denounce election doubters via a government-run app originally created to report power outages. “There will be no mercy,” Maduro said on state TV.
The United States is seeking a negotiated settlement with Maduro for him to recognize opposition candidate Edmundo González as the winner of the presidential election. The Wall Street Journal this week reported that the U.S. is offering Maduro and some of his high-ranking officials amnesty from prosecution if he leaves Venezuela. The U.S. State Department has publicly denied making such an offer.
The opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was blocked from running in the presidential election. She has become the driving force for the main opposition coalition and a symbol of hope for millions of Venezuelans who would like to see a change to their nation in economic crisis. She has accused Maduro of unleashing a “campaign of terror” in an attempt to cling on to power.
On August 1, Machado published a letter in The Wall Street Journal, stating that she had gone in to hiding "fearing for my life, my freedom, and that of my fellow countrymen from the dictatorship of Maduro"; in the letter, she laid out the evidence she said she had from the vote tallies supporting her party’s victory, and stated that Maduro had expelled witnesses from the polls.
The government in Venezuela has banned Machado from leaving Venezuela.
Guest:
Freddy Guevara is a Venezuelan politician. He was elected deputy to the Venezuelan National Assembly for Circuit 2 of the Miranda State representing the Democratic Unity Roundtable in the parliamentary elections of December 6, 2015. He is a Democracy Visiting Fellow at the Ash Institute at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
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*This interview will be recorded on Tuesday, August 13, 2024.
