Pablo Hiriart
We must give credit to the leaders of the populist and anti-democratic left for one thing: their mastery in shifting from perpetrators to victims, and from victims to executioners. They form a kind of brotherhood of cynicism across the continent and beyond. Gold medalists in the double metamorphosis (from perpetrators to victims and then to executioners), they have legions of media outlets addicted to power and lies. We see this today in the case of Venezuela, where the sectarian left, on both sides of the continent, is shouting that a coup is being prepared against Nicolás Maduro.
Nicolás Maduro is not the victim of an attempted coup. He staged a coup. He lost the elections by a wide margin, and by his own rules. After losing, he remained in power and punished the winners as “coup plotters.” What kind of president is that? Certainly not a president. He carried out a coup thanks to his control of the Supreme Court with one hand and repression with the other. In Venezuela, the coup was carried out by the person who should have handed over power after losing the election and remained in the Miraflores Palace.
Venezuelans voted for change on July 28 last year. The records, collected by election observers, polling station representatives, and civil organizations, showed a clear lead for Edmundo González, the candidate of the Unitary Platform. According to the parallel count, 65% of the votes favored González. Maduro lost and did not hand over power to the Republic. That’s called a coup d’état. Any questions?
The National Electoral Council, under Chavista control, proclaimed him “re-elected” with 51.9% of the vote, without showing any records, allowing audits, or publishing the results at the polling stations. The Carter Center refused to validate the process. The United States, the European Union, and the OAS requested a review. The Supreme Court, an arm of the executive branch, ratified the results without reviewing a single ballot.
That was when the coup was consummated. Maduro carried it out. He disregarded the popular mandate and used the state to transform his defeat into victory, then persecuted his opponents and whined that a coup was coming. The dictator has the cynicism to accuse others of what he himself did. And he has no shortage of cheerleaders in politics and the media on our continent and beyond.
He points to María Corina Machado and the United States for “attempting a fascist coup,” but it was he who dismantled democracy. As obscene as the lie has been, the propaganda that accompanied it has been. The continent’s authoritarian left came out in defense of the usurper after Machado won the Nobel Prize and the United States deployed eight warships and a submarine in the Caribbean. They claim that Venezuela is a victim of Washington, when in reality it is a hostage of Moscow and Havana. The United States did not bring about foreign interference in Venezuela. Maduro brought it about. Cuba runs much of the intelligence apparatus and controls internal repression in Venezuela. Cuban advisers are in the ministries, the army, and the SEBIN, dictating the strategy of control and surveillance. And Russia supports the regime with weapons, technology, and diplomatic backing so that Maduro can subjugate Venezuelans.
Caracas has become a piece on Putin’s geopolitical chessboard. Venezuelan oil is traded through Russian networks. Repression is coordinated with Cuban agents and methods. That is where the real foreign interference lies. It is what guarantees the dictatorship’s permanence. Maduro is the head of a country dominated by drug cartels, where military institutions and their commanders have mixed with governors and large organized crime groups. He will not leave the government just like that, because he is part of a mafia and plays on Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical chessboard.
Venezuelans are the victims of this criminal pincer movement. But the sectarian left-wing media talk about a “media war” and remain silent about everything else. They are the face of cynicism: they defend the tyrant in the name of anti-imperialism. On January 10 of this year, 2025, Maduro was sworn in as president before an exhausted country and a handful of foreign allies who sealed the farce. The sovereignty he claims to defend is mortgaged to Moscow and Havana. And to the drug cartels.
The populist left that supports him has exchanged “the cause of the people” for “the cause of power.” And every government, media outlet, or political party that justifies him participates in that coup by omission or complicity.
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