The inauguration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro left his opponents to grapple with conflicting feelings of hope and disappointment yesterday, pondering why the self-described socialist leader could not be stopped despite credible evidence that he had lost the election last year.
Some described their mood after Friday’s ceremony at the legislative palace in Caracas like an emotional hangover, while others said they feel abandoned.
Many expressed cautious optimism, finding a measure of comfort in the social media videos released by two opposition leaders — former lawmaker Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez, the opposition’s candidate in the vote — who had promised to topple Maduro.
Photo: Reuters
“In the end, it feels as if the soup got cold,” college professor Nelson Perez said. “We’ve been on the subject of not losing hope for a while. But then you realize it’s more of the same.”
That realization is hard to process for millions of Venezuelans who, like Perez, had imagined a different Jan. 10 — one with Gonzalez receiving the presidential sash and Machado giving one of her signature fiery speeches before the Venezuelan National Assembly. Instead, Gonzalez and Machado sent messages on social media while Maduro placed his hand on Venezuela’s constitution and took the oath of office, defying overwhelming evidence contradicting his victory claim in the July presidential election.
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, stacked with government loyalists, had declared Maduro the winner of the July 28 election last year. However, unlike in previous contests, electoral authorities did not provide detailed vote counts to back the announced result.
Photo: Reuters
The opposition collected tally sheets from 85 percent of electronic voting machines and posted them online — showing its candidate, Gonzalez, had won by a more than a two-to-one margin. UN experts and the US-based Carter Center, both invited by Maduro’s government to observe the election, said the tally sheets published by the opposition are legitimate.
Machado, in a message on social media on Friday, said Maduro was guilty of a coup by not leaving office by Jan. 10, when by law, Venezuela’s presidential term begins.
She also said she was confident that the country’s “freedom is near,” but stopped short of saying anything about future steps the opposition could take to end Maduro’s presidency.
“You see people, and they look like they have a hangover,” bricklayer Luis Carlos Moreno, 55, said of the mood among those who had stayed away from the inauguration ceremony. “We have to wait until next week to see how things go and if … everyone goes to work and the kids go to school.”
Meanwhile, Gonzalez in a video message told supporters that Maduro’s government would end “soon, very soon” and promised to return to Venezuela.
Those struggling with the idea of Maduro’s rule for six more years included poll workers — many of them were harassed or arrested following the election.
“I’m very disappointed,” said Caracas resident and poll worker Marlyn Ruiz. “Reality is not as we were led to believe.”
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS