After declaring victory in a fraud-tainted and totally uncredible election, Venezuela’s autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro, is undertaking steps to legitimize election results that are almost certainly falsified, launch a new campaign of political persecution against the democratic opposition, and consolidate dictatorial rule over the Venezuelan people for six more years.
After his cronies on the country’s national electoral commission released digital vote tallies purporting to show Maduro received 51 percent of the vote to opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González’s 44 percent (while providing no evidence to indicate where the numbers came from or how they are reconcilable with strong evidence — including paper vote tallies obtained by the opposition — pointing to a landslide opposition victory), Maduro’s regime moved swiftly to crack down on dissent.
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