Posted on 12/07/2020 7:32:08 AM PST by george76
Allies of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro won a majority of votes in a parliamentary election that saw scant participation due to a boycott by the opposition, which said Sunday’s event was a farce meant to consolidate a dictatorship.
The elections council said that 67.6% of the 5.2 million votes cast in Sunday’s election went to an alliance of parties called the Great Patriotic Pole that backs Maduro – but that only 31% of eligible voters participated.
Voting centers were left barren in an embarrassment to the ruling Socialist Party, but the results nonetheless return congress to Maduro’s control despite an economy in tatters, an aggressive U.S. sanctions program, and a mass migration exodus.
“Venezuela already has a new national assembly,” Maduro said, in television remarks that were muted in comparison with his frequent triumphalism. “A great victory, without a doubt.”
Elections council chief Indira Alfonzo did not specify how many of the 277 seats would go to Maduro allies, based on the 82% of votes counted thus far. That was a departure from typical congressional poll-result announcements that usually break down the distribution of seats.
Alfonzo did name a handful of victorious candidates, however, including First Lady Cilia Flores and Diosdado Cabello, vice president of the Socialist Party.
She added that 17.95% of the votes went to parties who have described themselves as Maduro adversaries, but are widely suspected of being Maduro’s shadow allies.
Earlier in the year, the supreme court had put several opposition parties in the hands of politicians expelled from those same parties for alleged links to Maduro – one of the major reasons the opposition had called the vote a sham.
The elections council was also named without the opposition’s participation, and Maduro had refused to allow meaningful electoral observation.
“After the blackmail, the kidnapping of parties, censorship, fabrication of results, sowing terror, they announce what we have been saying – a fraud with 30%,” opposition leader Juan Guaido, the head of the current congress, wrote on Twitter.
The opposition in 2015 won congress in a landslide, but the pro-Maduro supreme court blocked even the most basic legislation. In 2017, Maduro supplanted parliament with the creation of an all-powerful body known as the National Constituent Assembly.
Opposition legislators nonetheless used the platform to denounce Maduro around the world for human rights abuses, corruption, and economic mismanagement, proving a constant thorn in the side of the Socialist Party.
Retaking control of congress will give Maduro few meaningful tools to restart an economy where a monthly salary or pension is often less than the cost of a kilo of meat or a carton of eggs.
It may lend his government more legitimacy to offer oil industry deals to companies willing to risk U.S. sanctions to tap the OPEC nation’s huge oil reserves.
But even traditional allies such as Russia and China, typically the most likely to challenge U.S. sanctions, have shown scant interest in an oil industry hollowed out by years of decay and the emigration of its most talented professionals.
The United States and many Western nations are refusing to recognize Sunday’s vote.
“What’s happening today is a fraud and a sham, not an election,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote on Twitter.
The opposition is calling on sympathizers to participate in a Dec. 12 consultation that will ask citizens whether they reject the results and want a change of government.
Guaido has been recognized by more than 50 countries including the United States as Venezuela’s legitimate interim president, after most Western nations disavowed Maduro’s 2018 re-election as fraudulent.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3912760/posts
Shocked! I am absolutely shocked, I tell you!
Smartmatic wins again!
The average leftist snowflake is devastated when their local store is out of the new iPhone in their favorite color, or the Starbucks is out of their favorite latte, but they dream of a system like Venezuela’s where most people are starving.
Maduro allies = 1.3 votes
non allies = 0.7 votes
Where we will be if this fraud of an election is allowed to stand.
Yep! This was tested here in Texas in a very red town and it worked like a charm! The rats dominated the races...folk there were in shock!
WE third world nations have to stick together!
[excerpt]
"...while Black Lives Matter claim to oppose police abuse and racism around the world, the organization is simultaneously a great supporter of some of the world’s most brutal and repressive dictators. In particular, the founders of BLM have been staunch supporters and allies of the sanguinary Venezuela dictator Nicolas Maduro and of the Castro regime in Cuba.
In December 2015 Black Lives Matter sent a delegation, headed by the organization’s co-founder, Opal Tometi, to act as observers during the Venezuelan Parliamentary elections of that year. The Maduro regime did not allow accreditation for observers from the Organization of American States, the UN, or the EU. The only accredited observers where from regimes and organizations friendly to the “revolutionary cause.”
Later that same month Tometi penned an article where she espouses, word for word, the regime’s standard text for international propaganda.
“In these last 17 years, we have witnessed the Bolivarian Revolution champion participatory democracy and construct a fair, transparent election system recognized as among the best in the world ,” wrote Tometi about one of the world’s most corrupt voting systems in history.
Earlier in 2015 Maduro was given an award at the Afro-descenndants Summit” held in Harlem. Maduro was invited at the behest of the Black Lives Matter leadership. ..."
[Venezuelan President] Nicolas Maduro with Opal Tometi (right), co-founder
of Black Lives Matter, in Harlem, Manhattan, December 2015.
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Also in 2015...
Russia agreed to provide military training for three leftist regimes in Latin America and increase military visits and exercises following a visit last week to the region by Moscow's Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu, Pentagon officials said.
Shoygu met with defense and military leaders in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua and signed several agreements on warship visits and military training during the visit, which ran from Feb 11 to 14.
It is not clear whether any new arms deals were completed during the visit.
Defense officials said the Russian leader is seeking bases in the region for strategic bomber flights that Shoygu recently promised would include flights over the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. ..."
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2020...
Russia has pledged to boost military and economic co-operation with Venezuela to help the South American nation deal with growing US pressure.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s comments came after his meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas.
Mr Lavrov said any attempts to remove Mr Maduro’s government by force were unacceptable.
The US accuses Mr Maduro of leading a corrupt and brutal regime. ...”
“Russia is a key ally of Venezuela, lending it billions of dollars and backing its oil industry and military.”
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2015.....
Russia and North Korea declare 2015 a ‘year of friendship’
“The biggest cause for concern is the growing military alliance between Russia and North Korea, with the two regimes recently announcing plans to conduct a series of joint army, navy and air force exercises this year.”
—Julian Ryall, Tokyo - Mar 11, 2015 - The Telegraph
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2015...
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You can include in this military alliance communist China and Iran.
Reporting from Moscow —
Neither Russia nor China has one inch of coastline on the Mediterranean Sea, making it an unlikely and provocative venue for their first joint naval war games.
The 10 days of maneuvers that got underway Monday will include live-fire exercises in the strategic sea connecting Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The point is lost on no one: A powerful new alliance of eastern giants is flexing its muscles in the very backyard of Western Europe — much as China has done on its own in the Pacific.
The war games follow Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, where he headlined Victory Day celebrations and spent three days making billion-dollar deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin. ...”
https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-china-russia-joint-naval-maneuvers-20150511-story.html
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The drums are already rolling for the upcoming Russian “Vostok” (east) wargames commencing on September 11. With its focal point in the Trans-Baikal region of eastern Siberia adjoining Chinese Manchuria and Mongolia, this is a nationwide Russian military and societal event.
Touted by Russian minister of defense Sergei Shoigu as “unprecedented in scale, both in terms of area of operations and numbers of military command structure, troops, and forces involved,” Russian state press is declaring that up to three hundred thousand troops and one thousand aircraft will be involved, with the majority from the Eastern and Central Military Districts.
This would be even larger than the near-legendary Zapad-81 maneuvers held in the western USSR during the depths of the Cold War. ...”
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The exercise started on August 19, 2005, and consisted of combined land, sea, and air elements simulating an intervention in a state besieged by terrorists or political turmoil.
It concluded on August 25, 2005. The force practiced air and naval blockades, an amphibious assault, and occupying a region. Approximately 8,000 Chinese troops took part along with 2,000 Russian troops.
China initially wanted to hold the exercise near the Taiwan Strait, Russia wanted to hold the exercise in Northwestern China near central Asia, but instead settlement was made on the Shandong Peninsula.
There are a number of reasons for the exercise, including:
China is the largest consumer of Russian military technology. The exercise will showcase the Russian weapons including the Tupolev Tu-22M and Tupolev Tu-95 long range bombers.
The two countries are by far the most influential in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the exercise will help to strengthen military ties.
Both countries have stated that the exercise is not directed at any one country, but many believed to be a show of force against the United States and particularly Taiwan.
The United States was not invited to observe the exercise, but did observe using satellite reconnaissance.[citation needed] The stated reason for the exercise is counter-terrorism; however, many analysts agree that the use of such heavy firepower, including long-range bombers, is not necessary. ...”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Mission_2005
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Below, from The Ministry of Defense for the Russian Federation website, Feb 3, 2020...
Military representatives of the member States of the Shanghai cooperation organization (SCO) signed a joint Protocol on the results of the second round of consultations and staff negotiations.
The signed agreement includes issues of comprehensive support of troops and the plan of the exercise stages. Also, during the joint work, the participants visited the Yurginsky training ground, where they conducted reconnaissance of the main stage site.
In addition, the foreign military inspected the place of overcoming the water crossing on the equipment. This will be the first experience for some participating countries.
The consultations were attended by representatives of 8 countries - Russia, India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The negotiations were led by the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Central Military District, Major General Rustam Minnekayev.
The anti-terrorist exercise “Peace mission-2020” will be held in August on the territory of the Central Military District at the Yurginsky training ground in the Kemerovo region.
During the exercise, the military personnel will have to work out the tasks of preparing and conducting an anti-terrorist operation by the joint group of troops (forces) of the SCO member States.
Press Service of the Central Military District
https://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12280242@egNews
Obama, Chavez, and Maduro (note the "soul-bro" handshake)
Before and After Maduro's Socialism
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