Washington Promotes Opposition Candidate Setting the Stage for Delegitimizing the Venezuelan Presidential Election
FEBRUARY 13, 2024
BY ROGER HARRIS
Photo by Bel Pedrosa – CC BY-SA 2.0
Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution marks its 25th anniversary this month, despite continuous US-led hybrid warfare to overthrow the socialist project. The Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro has successfully forced the US to de facto engage with it, although Washington still maintains the fiction that the defunct 2015 National Assembly is the “last remaining democratic institution” there.
The US has been relegated to vetting candidates for the upcoming Venezuelan presidential election. While still egregiously interventionist, the imperial power has failed to achieve outright regime change. The appearance of Venezuelan opposition politician Maria Corina Machado before a US congressional committee is the latest in the empire’s quest for a trustworthy confederate. Hopes are high among Republicans that she is the right collaborator. The Democrats may have another but complementary game plan.
The opposition to the ruling Venezuelan socialist government is composed of many small and fractious sects, usually associated with a dominant personality, such as Machado’s Vente Venezuela party. The US spends millions each year meddling in the internal affairs of Venezuela in what it euphemistically calls “democracy promotion.” USAID alone pledged $50M to “push” the presidential elections, scheduled for later this year.
Washington’s efforts to force a unified opposition have been so far unsuccessful in Venezuela. But that has not deterred the Yankees from imperiously vetting the candidate they think ought be Venezuela’s leader.
Farewell to Venezuelan “interim president” Juan Guaidó
The last contender for the role of the empire’s factotum was the now disgraced Juan Guaidó. Despite his popularity abroad as the “interim president” of Venezuela, the hapless security asset was not as well received at home and was dismissed by his own opposition bloc in 2022.
More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/02/13/washington-promotes-opposition-candidate-setting-the-stage-for-delegitimizing-the-venezuelan-presidential-election/
Maria Corina Machado, as George W.'s guest of honor in Washington, visiting during the Presidency of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan progressive the U.S. hard right despised due to his work to raise the standard of living of the massive Venezuelan poor, and start expecting wildly predatory, exploitative US-based oil corporations which had been given monstrous sweetheart arrangements with the Venezuelan oligarchs and pay only a pittance of the appropriate tax base. Chavez became #1 public enemy the moment he started looking out for the interests of the poor, establishing schools for, heaven forbid, poor children, sending in teachers into neighborhood to start teaching the parents to read, setting up food kitchens, bringing in doctors who would actually treat poor people, unlike the home grown snots who wouldn't touch the poor with ten foot poles, etc., etc., etc.
Marina Corina Machado has always operated her own "non-profit" (you bet) operation of pro-Washington politicians who wage continual war on whatever progressive people are elected, while getting paid handsomely by the U.S. Congress.
She probably smells like Donald J. Trump. too!