Venezuelan election results matter to Ukraine and freedom

The votes cast will not only usher in a six-year term for the next President of the Bolivarian Republic, but they will once again provide an answer as to whether the people of the once great Venezuela are able to live as individuals should, freed from the chains of Nicolas Maduro’s corrupt and choking communist society, and possibly more importantly, free from lives influenced by Maduro’s cronies in Moscow and Tehran.

According to data from the World Economic Forum. from a historic GDP peak of 331 Billion Dollars in 2012 (unadjusted for inflation), chronic mismanagement of the Venezuelan economy during Maduro’s now 11-year reign led to a staggering 60% decline in GDP by 2019, with the 2023 economic numbers coming in around 114 Billion Dollars. This stunning financial retraction was compounded by a Weimar-like era of inflation under Maduro, which reached a staggering 10 million percent per year early in his second term. During this time the Putin regime began forging closer ties with the mineral-rich Latin American country with Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez. However, as a litany of failed socialist experiments plunged more than 90% of the Venezuelan populace into poverty based on UN findings, the Maduro-Putin friendship circle expanded to include the leadership of another leading carbon compound-producing dictatorship - Iran.

Attempting to act as a counterweight to perceived US influence in the region while taking advantage of almost two decades of failed leadership by Chavez and Maduro, the Kremlin has exploited Carcasas’ missteps to a startling degree. Billions of dollars in Russian loans to Venezuela, complemented by ever more robust weapons deals and direct training exercises, are evidence of the extent to which Maduro not only relies on his autocratic allies in Russia but just how much he subjugated himself to their demands. Further proof is seen in the more than half dozen trips Maduro has taken to Moscow during his time in office, including one visit that took place well into Russia’s illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Being under Moscow’s influence is a putrid enough fate for Venezuela’s almost 30 million remaining residents. However, a more recent development portends an even worse fate for the imperiled citizens of the overwhelmingly Christian state. Maduro’s dalliances with fellow dictators, including a visit by Iran’s former President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at his inauguration, has now grown to include the Maduro government’s intersectional alliance with the sanctioned purveyors of terror, better known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In addition to working directly with the Ayatollah’s henchmen to export terror throughout the world, Venezuela and Iran have also reached agreements on interests in the area of Naval Operations, the energy sector, and weapons production.

Against this backdrop, the official and widely supported opposition movement led by Presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez and the movement’s ideological leader, Maria Corina Machado, is tasked with not only defeating the incumbent officeholder but also his friends in Europe and the Middle East. Maduro, who recently warned of the risk of a “bloodbath” and “civil war” if he should lose, is not alone in worrying about what would happen if democracy triumphs over autocracy on Sunday. The fortunes of his two patrons hang in the balance as well.

From assisting Russia in its war of imperialistic genocide against the Ukrainian people and clearing his country’s prisons, thereby unleashing waves of migrants to help Russia destabilize the US Southern Border, to supplying passports for members of Hezbollah, Maduro understands that his illegitimate authority rests solely in the hands of Vladimir Putin and Ayatollah Khamenei. As the world watches, Sunday marks the day for his false mandate to be stripped away and for the world to be reminded yet again that freedom alone reigns supreme.

Sergeant Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, Armed Forces of Ukraine

The author's opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Ukrinform's editorial board.