Nicolás Maduro Threatened Bloodshed in Venezuela and Is Following Through

To explain how we got to this point would take too many pages, but I will try to sum it up succinctly.

In Venezuela, there is a tyranny that has held power for more than two decades. Through its elections, Venezuela has tried to maintain an image of a democratic system in the world’s eyes. In 2024, the opposition—led by the conservative María Corina Machado—managed to prevail and overcome all kinds of obstacles to transform the presidential election into a unique opportunity to free Venezuela. Although Machado, who is the most popular person in Venezuela, was illegally disqualified from running for office by the regime, she gave her support to Edmundo González, a moderate Venezuelan diplomat who until recently was an unknown figure.

Machado and González ran an impressive campaign that roused the entire country from political apathy and turned the vote on Sunday 28 July into an unprecedented landslide. Nicolás Maduro, the country’s dictator-president, however, decided to use bullets to retain his power,

In fact, the dictator had already announced he would do so. On the eve of the elections, at several political rallies, Nicolás Maduro said that if the opposition won, “a bloodbath would be unleashed in Venezuela.” Well, the bloodbath has arrived.

The day after the electoral fraud, María Corina Machado and Edmundo González announced their disavowal of the result. After the collection of all the electoral records reported the true results—67% opposition; 30% Maduro—hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans spontaneously took to the streets all over the country.

The demonstration was unprecedented. For many years, one of the great frustrations of the Venezuelan opposition is that those who have tended to sustain periods of street protests, such as those that occurred in 2014, 2017, or 2019, have been middle-class citizens or the more affluent sectors of Caracas. However, this Monday 29th July, and without the leadership calling for it, it was the poor neighbourhoods of all of Venezuela that took to the streets to repudiate the fraud of Nicolás Maduro.

The demonstration was so groundbreaking that, for the first time, the opposition managed to protest in the vicinity of the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, where Maduro holds office. 

And what was the regime’s response? Well, in full accordance with his nature, Nicolás Maduro made good on his promise that if the opposition won, he would bring bloodshed to the country.

The protests were brutally repressed. With a level of cruelty never before seen, the regime of Nicolás Maduro sent irregular Chavista paramilitary groups to disperse the demonstrators with gunfire. The Bolivarian National Guard and other repressive forces fired at point-blank range at civilians across the country who had taken to the streets to demand their victory on Sunday.

The toll so far is terrifying: more than 16 killed, more than 800 detained and more than 200 missing. Several of the dead are children, such as Isaías Fuenmayor, who at the age of 15 was mercilessly murdered in the western Venezuelan state of Zulia.

The military high command announced its unrestricted support for Nicolás Maduro. The tyrant denounced that, as he saw it, coup d’état was underway against him. Chavista spokespersons, such as Jorge Rodríguez and Diosdado Cabello, began to demand that María Corina Machado and Edmundo González be imprisoned. Chavismo then decided to hold on at any cost.

Although the regime insists that it won, the only international observer with some prestige that was invited to the elections by Maduro himself was the Carter Center. It published its conclusions on the night of July 30th: the elections were not democratic and the regime plunged them into absolute opacity. This followed the Center cancelling a press conference in Caracas and fleeing Venezuela in order to be able to say (i.e. denounce) precisely what it wanted in its report.

While Maduro and the military aim to cling to power, a bloody period of great darkness is looming for Venezuela. Because, like an unstoppable force colliding with an immovable object, the will of Venezuelans to be free is intact. María Corina Machado—although she has been threatened and harassed, and there is allegedly an arrest warrant out for her—rejected the Costa Rican government’s offer of asylum. She affirms that her fight is “to the end” and that no one will separate her from the Venezuelan people.

With the determination of both factions to go all the way—on the one side a small group of criminals with guns and on the other side more than 70% of Venezuelans led by a woman—a prolongation of the conflict is inevitable. 

Venezuelans are on the streets fighting for the most sacred thing that they have: their freedom. It is their moral duty. But it is also the moral duty of the world to accompany that struggle and, in whatever way it can, to assist it. If enough pressure is exerted, it is inevitable that the corrupt system that today oppresses Venezuela will collapse. Those are the stakes.