robbo203
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Yeah, I agree. That is a fair point- although that did not stop the Orinoco Times peddling the BS about the failure to release the detailed results being due to a “massive and unprecedented cyberattack aimed at damaging the electoral and corrupting the electoral system.” Even if that was true you could always recount the actual paper ballots which all went to the CNE – supposedly – if that evidence has not already been destroyed.
This ridiculous excuse is what is allowing this corrupt antidemocratic regime to cling on to power in the face of the fact that it lost the elections by a wide margin. Even many Chavistas recognise this and are deeply unhappy with the situation. It seems to me more and more obvious that the regime is not going to release the results. Its entire credibility would be on the line. Of course, it could try to fake the actas but I don’t believe that is possible…
Yeah but that idiot Starmer doesn’t look like he is gonna get his way – assuming he is for giving Ukraine the unconditional assistance of long range missiles which is pretty sick considering the possible consequences…
It seems the Pentagon is not in favour of the idea although the State Department is
Sir Keir Starmer was set to leave Washington on Friday night without any announcement on allowing Ukraine to fire long-range missiles into Russia.
The Prime Minister held talks with Joe Biden in the White House to discuss pleas from Volodymyr Zelensky to let the country use the Storm Shadow missiles.But John Kirby, a spokesman for the US national security council, said there would be no announcement on long-range missiles after the meeting. He did not rule out one at a later date.
Foreign Office sources had briefed against expecting the green light at the end of Starmer’s visit, but it will come as a disappointment to leave without a decision.
After the meeting, Sir Keir said the pair had come to a “strong position” but suggested a final decision on Storm Shadow had been deferred to the UN General Assembly at the end of the month.
“While France has not announced an official position on the matter, unnamed diplomats told the French daily that Paris is concerned about the risk of escalation and has been working to avoid it, RT reported.
“We must do everything possible to avoid World War III,” an unnamed official told the newspaper.”
The Orinoco Times is a blatantly pro-government outfit. It is not a reliable source. It seems pretty clear that the gangster capitalist Maduro and his cronies stole the election and that they are not going to release the detailed results despite promises. The deadline for doing so has long passed. Maduro is a lying scumbag who wants to cling to power at all costs so he and his chums can keep their grubby paws on the oil revenue, drug trafficking money and so on.
All the excuses they come up with are transparently just a means of wriggling out of the constitutional obligation to reveal the detailed voting results. As I understand it, there was no “massive cyberattack”- the farcical claim of an attack emanating from North Macedonia was disproven – though there was apparently an attack on an outlier computer not locked into the CNE system (which is unhackable). And even if there was an attack, the CNE presumably has all the paper voting slips (if they haven’t destroyed these already). It has no excuses for not revealing the results
It appears that many Chavistas are themselves starting to question the official results. I was looking at an interview with one Chavista who was saying that while she supported the government she was not a cheat. Some Chavistas had access to actas – the voting tallies – which they said were identical to those posted on the opposition website showing Maduro lost by a huge margin.
Here in Spain, there has been quite a lot of news just lately about Venezuela and wealthy Venezuelans who have links to the regime who have bought up expensive property in places like certain posh suburbs of Madrid. The suggestion is corrupt money might be involved but the situation is tricky for the PSOE regime here because of its ties with Venezuela.
I do agree with one thing the CNE statement says, however:
The United States of America has one of the most pathetic and obsolete electoral systems on the planet, incapable of providing certainty in its results, leaving many doubts in its elections, as has been evident on countless occasions. For this reason, the United States government lacks the moral authority to evaluate and give opinions on electoral issues anywhere, and much less in Venezuela, where there is an electoral system of the highest global standards.
The American election is indeed a joke, However, the last bit about the Venezuelan electoral system being of the “highest global system” is only true in a technical sense but what is the point in having an election if you are determined to lie about the result that the system delivers?
But is not this a Russian propaganda channel?
______________________________I think the guy who writes the substack is pro-Russian, yes. Its the first time Ive come across it so I am not all that familiar with it. But it interesting that Sikorski should suggest that what politicians say in public is not necessarily the same thing as what they say in private. The hype about crossing red lines and whatnot may just be a case of posturing
This might be relevant :
“The relief, of course, is that Sikorski confirms: “There is no willingness in Europe to have a war with Russia, this is an absolute red line.”This is good news, as it shows behind the scenes Europe has a few saner and cooler heads than we sometimes imagine, and Sikorski even goes on to admit that much of his posturing is for the public’s sake to make Putin “wonder”—i.e. part of the infamous “strategic ambiguity” that Europe has banked on out of desperation.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/zelenskys-last-hail-mary-gets-off
Interesting article. It looks increasingly like the Kursk adventure backfired and that the Ukrainian regime is going to pay a heavy price for it. The Russian military has already recaptured a part of Kursk taken by the Ukrainian military and has destroyed a large part of the latter´s equipment and personnel there. If the plan was to get the Russian military to divert resources from Eastern Ukraine where it has been steadily advancing, this has not worked.
Realistically, there is no chance of the Zelensky regime achieving its goals of evicting the Russian regime in the East and Crimea. But whoever wins this war, and it’s looking increasingly like Russia will, the workers on both sides will have lost in the pathetically stupid cause of nationalism. Let’s hope this tragedy comes to an end sooner rather than later and the pointless bloodshed stops….
Interesting piece from the Communist Party of Venezuela. At least they recognise that Maduro´s gangster capitalist regime is no friend of the workers:
“In Venezuela there is a fierce confrontation between two bourgeois poles disputing the domination of the state apparatus in order to control the management of the oil rent: On the one hand, there is the sector of the traditional bourgeoisie and its parties grouped in the Democratic Unitary Platform that have attempted coups d’états, the imposition of foreign sanctions and the theft of public patrimony abroad. And on the other side is the new bourgeois and landed class of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its allies that emerged from 25 years of privileged access to oil revenues with an administration plagued with corruption and an inability to transform the rentier and dependent base of Venezuelan capitalism.”
“Opposition technicians argue that voting records are very complex difficult to hack — they have electronic signatures, a specific paper and a QR code — and that it would be very easy to verify whether or not they are authentic. “There are people who say that they [the Chavistas] are working to show some records,” said María Corina Machado at an opposition rally in Caracas. “I hope they do it. It would be public proof of fraud. I am waiting for them: publish your records.”
Even when the elections commission released its result, it was botched, Jacques says. “The first state tv announcement listed all the candidates with their percentages and when you added it up, it totaled 132%,” he said. “You would think someone would have checked the addition.”
Brussels-based technology writer Jan Govaerts says the Maduro government doesn’t care that it has been caught red-handed. “They plan to stonewall it, stick to their numbers even though the world knows it’s a lie,” he says. “Maduro and his lieutenants have a lot to lose if they admit defeat — they would probably face long prison terms – so why not stick to the lie. They’ve gotten away with it so far.”
Also, the Court seemed to request that the electoral commission publish the full “election results” within 30 days of the proclamation of Maduro as the winner. Maybe there is someone out there who can say when the result was officially proclaimed? Maybe it wasn’t 30 days after the date of the election?
I think it was 30 days after the election which has now passed. I can’t see them providing the breakdown results now. Its all a charade to provide the regime with a veneer of legitimacy by involving the Supreme Court (packed with Maduro loyalists) etc etc. If Maduro had actually won in reality it would be in the interest of the CNE to publish the breakdown results ASAP (as happened under Chavez for example). If they have got the actual proof why the delay? That in itself makes one smell a rat. They are trying to hide the fact that Maduro lost
“Machado and Gonzalez have made several confusing claims, that they have 40 percent of the voting records, then 70 percent and also 100 percent. President Maduro has gone to the Supreme Court filing a review appeal which involves the government submitting all the ‘voting records’ in the possession of his coalition, asking the Supreme Court to summon all 10 candidates for them to submit their voting records.
I am not quite sure where the (government supporting) Orinoco Times gets its information from but as far as I understand it, the opposition collected somewhat over 80 per cent (83%?) of the actas which were then published on its website. It had organised a massive campaign beforehand to get its supporters to collect the physical evidence in the form of these actas which were then scanned and published on the website. In a small number of cases, the voting centers refused to give actas to opposition parties so only the CNE would have 100& of the actas. But even with 83% of the actas there is enough evidence to show Maduro lost by a big margin…..
Valid point, by the way, asking why the pro-US opposition didn’t submit its tally sheets to the court. What had they to lose?
From what I read, they are fearful of handing over the original evidence – their physical copies of the actas – because they believe the CNE will destroy this evidence (bearing in mind these actas have the original “wet signatures” of the officials who signed them). But I would have thought the scanned copies that appear on their website would surely be enough evidence to submit to the CNE as they are unforgeable and could easily be checked against the government’s own set of duplicate actas. Still, it is a little odd that the opposition has not submitted the original actas as they now have nothing to lose by submitting them if the CNE is just going to ignore the actual breakdown results…
There is also, of course, the little matter of Gonzalez and Machado probably being arrested should they make an appearance at the CNE….
NEWSFLASH
It seems that virtually the whole country, including Caracas, today suffered from a massive total or partial power failure which also affected telecommunications
Power outages have been becoming more common and have been attributed lack of proper maintenance due to gross corruption and incompetence. Experts have apparently been warning that a massive outage such as what happened today was on the cards.
The Maduro regime has (predictably) been blaming it on sabotage by the opposition. The problem is that all the power installations, as I understand it, are heavily militarised. This prompts the thought – if it is sabotage could it possibly have been carried out by military personnel?
While the top brass of the military has pledged allegiance to the regime, low-ranking soldiers are more equivocal. Most are poorly paid unlike the top brass and of course, have familial links with Venezuelan workers who are suffering – particularly the poorest in the shanty towns that the regime is particularly intent on repressing
Could there be some kind of military coup in the offing? It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened
“What the media are hiding”
______________________________________________
Globalresearch.ca may well be a peddler of “falsehoods and conspiracy theories” as LEW suggests but to be fair to the article published by this entity that has been linked here, it does make some good points (but also some very bad points!)
I am aware of the dodgy background of the two main opposition leaders it refers to – Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Corina Machado. González involvement in Operation Condor is something that I’ve come across before many times in surfing the web. Very unsavoury! Personally, I think Machado is the more problematic of the two. I have a particular dislike of populist politicians and she, like Trump, falls into that category. So of course it goes without saying that in no way can we have any sympathy for these people – this quite apart from the fact that they stand for more capitalism!
However, the article then goes on to make several tendentious claims. I will look at just two of these
1) “The same goes for the exit polls. The Edison Research poll was eagerly mentioned. It foretold opposition candidate González 65 percent and Maduro 31 percent of the vote. The media failed to mention that this agency is linked to the CIA and they were silent about the exit polls of the prestigious Hinterlaces agency, which at noon had Maduro at 54.6 percent and González at 42.8 percent (very close to the official result).”
The Hinterlaces Agency which the article calls “prestigious” is no more neutral than the pollsters favouring the opposition. It is part of the Maduro propaganda machinery. According to Wikipedia:
“Efecto Cocuyo analysed an April 2024 poll by Hinterlaces and concluded that its methodology was inconsistent, citing contradictory dates, a small sample size, high number of undecided voters, and very high margin of error.[11][9] The poll results were published on website Fuser News, alleged by Efecto Cucuyo to be disseminators of Russian, Iranian, Chinese and Venezuelan state propaganda,[12] and also by Telesur, a state-controlled Venezuelan media company.[citation needed]”
Apart from that, all this reference to “exit polls” (on both sides!) can be taken with a pinch of salt. The only thing that counts is the actual vote and the physical evidence in the form of voting tallies or actas (generated by machines on some 30,000 voting tables) shows absolutely unequivocally that Maduro lost by a big margin. These actas cannot be faked or forged as I´ve said several times before. The opposition (whatever else we might think of them) were astute enough to anticipate that Maduro would try to pull a fast one. That is exactly what he attempted to do but, this time round, he was caught with his panties down. He hadn’t anticipated that the opposition would organise a massive campaign to collect all the physical evidence it required to show a fraud had been committed.
The subsequent wriggling by the regime and its supporters has been frankly pathetic. Maduro promised one month ago to provide a detailed breakdown of the votes by voting centre. This is, actually, a legal requirement – the CNE is legally required to present this evidence. It seems Maduro has conveniently forgotten that promise. What we got instead was a meaningless and farcical ritual involving the Supreme Court (unsurprisingly packed with Maduro supporters) to legitimise the CN´s unsupported claim that Maduro had won 51% of the vote
see here
2). “In addition, on election day there was a massive cyberattack from Colombia and the US against government institutions, including the National Electoral Council. This attack delayed the counting of votes for hours and gave the opposition the opportunity to come up with their own results before the official results were available.”
This is almost entirely BS There was apparently an attempted hack of just one particular computer that was outside of the CNE information loop (I may be wrong but I think this was for overseas votes – a few voters abroad were allowed to vote but the vast majority were denied the right to vote from abroad – including my partner). However, the effect of hacking this computer would have been immaterial. Inside the CNE loop (which would cover almost all of the voting results), these results are communicated to the CNE from the voting centres by landline – meaning they cannot possibly be hacked. So the CNE had all the information available to show that Maduro had lost. It chose to hide this information.
I think the claims about cyberattacks were a complete distraction to throw people off the scent. Apart from the one single example above they appear to be fabrications. Remember when Maduro was going on about a cyberattack from North Macedonia? Here´s what the government there has to say about this
https://balkaninsight.com/2024/07/30/north-macedonia-baffled-by-venezuelan-claims-of-hacking-attack/
What more is there to be said? Hardly any country on the South American continent including countries with left-wing governments like Chile, Columbia and Brazil – recognises the results. Venezuelan people don’t recognise the results including many Chavistas themselves who are appalled by what has happened. What happens next is anybody´s guess….
The analysis proffered by ALB and Robbo make no mention at all of probable CIA involvement. You could argue this a puzzling omission by the Forum’s intellectual heavyweights, or something more sinister
____________________________________________________________Nothing sinister about it all. Certainly, it is highly probable that Machado´s organisation has been funded by the CIA and the prospect of a Machado-led government is not one that the Venezuelan working class should look forward to at all. It would screw the workers just as much as the current gangster capitalist regime of Maduro is doing and it would be with the aid of “American imperialism” (in contrast to the Maduro regime that enjoys the support of Russian and Chinese imperialism)
I have omitted to talk much about the opposition because frankly – let’s face it – the main focus at the moment is on the fraudulent claims of the Maduro regime to have won the election. Any honest and democratic response would be to acknowledge that Maduro comprehensively lost the election – beyond a shadow of a doubt. All the hard empirical evidence is there for everyone to see.
It is absolutely appalling that significant swathes of the Left are so unprincipled and so blind to the reality as to be willing accomplices in spreading the lie that Maduro won. That, to me, is one of the most sickening and shocking aspects of this whole sordid business – that they would not only support an obviously corrupt plutocrat and lying bastard like Maduro (and his cronies) but that they would actually lie through their own teeth to help keep this individual in power….
Further evidence of just how intellectually and morally bankrupt a large part of the Left (with some honourable exceptions) has become.
So, today is the deadline when the Maduro regime was supposed to have presented a detailed breakdown of the voting results in the July elections confirming that it has legitimately won the elections. Predictably it has not done so at the time of writing. This is despite a solemn pledge that it would do so. See this.
It won’t present the evidence because it hasn’t got the evidence. You can’t go against the hard empirical and scientific evidence provided by the opposition on its website of scanned copies of over 80 per cent of the actas or voting tallies – that cannot be forged or faked – that show absolutely and without question that Maduro lost this election by a huge margin.
I don’t (obviously!) have any sympathy for the opposition and the overwhelming vote they got was, I understand, more a protest vote against the regime than a vote for the opposition, as such. Nevertheless, the outcome of the vote was crystal clear. Maduro lost the elections and his holding on to power is based on a shabby lie.
Those who continue to support this obnoxious and increasingly repressive gangster capitalist regime have demonstrated their utter contempt for the democratic process. They are aiding Venezuela´s slide into full-on fascism.
It’s from this pro-governnent news site:
………………….
I wouldn’t trust this site further than I can spit. Its totally biased in favour of the regime. I just cannot see how the CNE can publish any meaningful breakdown of the election results when, empirically and scientifically, the actual evidence shows that Maduro was trounced by a huge margin. The other option available to the regime is to lie through their teeth. Though the vote favoured the opposition I think in reality it was more a vote against Maduro than for the opposition, as such. People are just fed up with the corruption and the grinding poverty…
