Carlos Sanchez Berzain Abogado | Estadista | Político | Politólogo
Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
August 21, 2019
(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Americas’ Transnational Organized Crime’s dictatorships that control Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, are “vote-catching dictatorships”. They hold elections in which people vote but do not elect, because these elections are manipulated so that those in power will continue to indefinitely retain it with impunity. Opposition’s candidates that the regime allows to participate, do so for the sole purpose of legitimizing the farce, thus taking the people to a situation in which by voting for the functional opposition’s candidates, they vote for the permanence of the dictator.
Castroist Chavist dictatorships from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua are, moreover, vote-catching dictatorships because they are regimes that “by force or violence, concentrate all political power in one person or group, repress human rights and basic individual freedoms, and use elections as a means of simulation and propaganda to keep themselves in power”, with the fallacious reasoning of being a revolution or popular movement.
Castro Chavism’s ideology induces to the counterfeiting of democracy and to manipulate elections that are neither free, nor fair, and do not respect the universal suffrage as an expression of the people’s sovereignty. They seek democratic legitimacy to supplant the peoples’ will through electoral processes that are a series of crime while they violate human rights, maintain political prisoners and exiles, exist without the rule of law and without the separation and independence of the branches of government.
In electoral matters, the crimes of Castroist Chavist’s dictatorships have been duly reported and are evident since many years ago but, inexplicably, Luis Almagro, the General Secretary of the Organization of American States, classifies Nicaragua and Bolivia as democracies, thus incurring in a double standard, given the fact that for the existence of the same conditions, and following four reports he has correctly classified “Venezuela as a total dictatorship” and has publicly acknowledged “Cuba as a galloping dictatorship”.
That in vote-catching dictatorships people vote but do not elect, has been amply demonstrated by electoral processes prepared solely for the dictator and his regime to remain in power. Those who the regime allows can be “make-believe opposition’s candidates”, because many potential genuine candidates, democratic and civic leaders are now political prisoners or exiles, or have been disqualified, thus remaining only those who negotiate or agree to be “functional candidates”, those who we have defined as “make-believe opposition’s candidates”, accepted and “authorized by the dictatorship that designs and organizes them focused on the easiness, usefulness, and convenience of its use”.
The Venezuelan opposition’s success in the elections of May of 2018 to unmask Nicolas Maduro’s Castroist Chavist dictatorship and afterwards give the dictator the status of “usurper”, consisted of not participating in such elections. The dictator manipulated functional candidates, but the crimes were so visible and notorious that as-of-now nearly 60 countries have rejected Maduro and recognize Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s President.
If the Venezuelan opposition would have participated in the May of 2018 elections, Maduro would have been sworn in for a new term legitimized by the participation of an opposition in the elections, an opposition who would have been defeated anyway through sheer electoral fraud, just like in previous elections. To not to participate is to deprive the regime the legitimization and this has allowed Venezuela to move forward and get very close to end the usurpation of Maduro’s vote-catching dictatorship.
In a vote catching dictatorship what is contested with the regime is not the legality but the legitimacy. The dictatorial legality is totally built, controlled, and manipulated by the regime that legislates and changes its “despicable laws” as they deem convenient and applies these loosely with judges and tribunals who pervert the course of justice. Legitimacy is that which is “legal, fair, genuinely truthful, and truthful in any line”, that which is allowed according to justice and reasoning. Vote-catching dictatorships are legitimized with the participation of functional make-believe oppositions. There is no legitimacy without genuine opposition’s candidates.
In this scenario, voters who -convinced of the absence of democracy and the existence of a dictatorship- end up being convinced that to vote for an opposition’s candidate weakens the dictator, when in reality what they are doing is to legitimize the dictator. In a vote-catching dictatorship, to vote for an opposition’s candidate, for any “functional” opposition’s candidate is the same as voting for the dictator, given that this meets the strategic objective the dictatorship seeks.
*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.
Published in Spanish by Infobae.com Sunday, August 18, 2019
Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators’ Association, ATA # 234680.