If you’re a leftist dictator, you know you’ve been caught cheating in an election when even Canada challenges your claims to victory. Yes, leftist Canada has just done this, and the hard left British newspaper The Guardian has basically done the same. See article below. Several European nations and even neighboring leftist Latrine American nations are also crying foul. But after arresting over 2,000 people for challenging him, Maduro is not backing down. The sad truth is he will never surrender power, no matter what. He knows Castro, Inc., Russia, and the Wagner Group will back him up.
From Granma UK (The Guardian)
Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro has vowed to “pulverise” the latest challenge to his rule and told troops he is “willing to do anything” to protect his “revolution” amid growing criticism of the crackdown that followed last week’s disputed election.
Maduro says more than 2,000 people have been arrested in the days since the 28 July vote while human rights groups say at least 22 people have been killed.
On Sunday, the EU said it was “seriously concerned” about the growing number of arbitrary detentions in Venezuela and the harassment of the opposition, which has produced evidence suggesting its candidate, Edmundo González, won the election.
“The European Union calls on Venezuelan authorities to put an end to arbitrary detentions, repression and violent rhetoric against members of the opposition and civil society, and to release all political prisoners,” the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said in a statement.
Canadian foreign minister Mélanie Joly also condemned the violence in a statement on Sunday and said citizen witnesses and international observers had provided “credible evidence” that the results provided by Maduro’s authorities “don’t reflect the will of the Venezuelan people”.
Maduro, who claims he won the election but has yet to provide proof, rejected such criticism on Sunday during a military ceremony in Caracas.
“The EU is a disgrace,” Maduro told members of the Bolivarian National Guard, a branch of the military that has been involved in the clampdown.
Decorating troops whom Maduro said were injured while responding to post-election disturbances last Monday and Tuesday, Venezuela’s authoritarian president said: “We are confronting, defeating, containing and pulverising an attempted coup in Venezuela”.
Maduro, who was elected after the 2013 death of his mentor Hugo Chávez, urged military chiefs to order a “total deployment” of their troops in response to the opposition challenge. Earlier, Venzeuela’s president told troops equipped with rifles and riot shields: “You can be certain that we will go after all of the criminals and all of the fascists because fascism will not seize power in Venezuela. I am willing to do anything and I am counting on you to ensure order, law and the constitution prevail.”
Sunday’s event appeared designed to send a message of military unity at a time when Maduro’s political opponents have been urging the armed forces to abandon Chávez’s unpopular heir. Twenty-four hours earlier, tens of thousands of pro-government protests marched to the presidential palace in what was designed to be a similar show of public support.
During Sunday’s televised ceremony, one young soldier took the microphone to declare complete fealty to his commander-in-chief: “Be mindful that you have a Bolivarian National Guard that is committed, devoted and absolutely from the bottom of its heart loyal to you and to the Bolivarian revolution.”
“We are aware that only with you leading us the homeland will not be lost; that only with you leading us the flame of revolution will not go out,” the soldier told Maduro.
The government’s increasingly hard-line rhetoric and the wave of arrests has spooked government opponents although they returned to the streets on Saturday after being summoned by María Corina Machado, the charismatic opposition leader who turbocharged González’s campaign.
continue reading HERE
He’d have to step down if the army told him it could not support him, but the army, certainly its leadership, is corrupt and complicit, and its leadership has criminal activity it’s afraid to answer for.