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Election Stolen! A Report on Venezuelan Affairs with Commentary on Cuba
Hi, this is Brian Standing, host of the Monday 8 o'clock buzz. Thanks so much for listening to the program. Hope you subscribed for a podcast. And if you really like what you're hearing, consider donating at W-O-R-T-F-M.org. Well, ever since the Cold War, the United States has done its best to thwart her overturn left-leaning or Marxist governments in the Western Hemisphere. Two particular thorns in the US side, though Cuba and Venezuela, have largely resisted multiple US efforts to install more capitalist-friendly governments. Given all that history, and given all the media bias and propaganda about these two Latin American nations, it's very difficult for even discerning news consumers in the US to find out what's really going on. To that end, we turn now to Andres Sebastian Pertiara, a historian currently at the University of Wisconsin Madison and a graduate of Havana University, who studies Marxist historiography and the history of capitalism. Andres Sebastian Pertiara joined us now from Havana, Cuba. Welcome to the 8 o'clock buzz. Thanks so much for having me on. Very excited to be here. So, you know, let's start with talking a little bit about Venezuela and the Maduro government and the Chavez government before that has been the target of multiple efforts from the US to try and install a more friendly government, US friendly government. And in these recent elections, though, we're seeing some pretty convincing evidence that Maduro's election was indeed fraudulent. How do we separate out what we're hearing from, you know, people who have an animus against this particular government and what the facts are? And how do we know that this election wasn't actually on the up and up? That's a great question. And I think that the two best pieces of evidence for that are one, and this is the first one. Everything Maduro had done would be really hard to explain unless his objective. It is a supposing he had one. Everything that he had done since would be hard to explain unless he was, for some reason, trying to make it look like fraud, even though it wasn't. Which doesn't really make sense, right? So, for example, you have the access, which are the precinct level results, where you can see the full-length result at a precinct level. And this is a really good way to check to see that, you know, the national numbers match off with the local ones, because he's only published the national ones. He's refused, even though Venezuela law says he's supposed to publish the precinct level results within 30 days, he completely ignored that and just basically decided to buy a Supreme Court kind of Bush, Bush v. Gore style, right? And we actually do have a precinct level results for about 80% of the polling stations, and they showed that the opposition candidate won. But these are like the copies that give to local poll workers as redundancy against any kind of fraud, by little refuses to publish the polling results. So, we can't really check this against anything, any kind of the result. So, and then he tries to explain the system not publishing the results as the result of a North Macedonian, a country of North or in Macedonia, packing plot also. He says that Elon Musk is part of a Hispanic, literally a Hispanic, a ball that is trying to overthrow the government. So, it's a bit blacky. And then the other strongest piece of evidence is, you have the government of Ignacio Lula da Silva, called up and literally known as Lula in Brazil, and he has been very, very sympathetic and supportive of Chávismo, who's the left government's social democrat. And he has been always trying to find a diplomatic approach and very opposed to US intervention in the region. But even he has turned his authoritarian turn. It's not full authoritarianism yet, but it's this authoritarian turn, and he's criticized the fact that Maludo is very clearly not playing by any reasonable rule. And I think that that really speaks in addition to, of course, the president board each of Chielei, who's also a left president saying, "lots of leftists present in the region are criticizing process," and I think it's pretty clear that this is not a, this doesn't break down along part of the line. And where does the Venezuelan elections stand at the current moment? Maduro is still in power, but what's happening in Venezuela? So the election was on July 28th. He was supposed to publish the recent level results within 30 days and all the rest. He sent you the Supreme Court to just say he's won. And as far as the bill process goes, we can be speaking, but avenues are exhausted. Maludo says he's won, the Supreme Court says he's won, even though it's not really their business, that he's saying that he's won this business of the CNE, which is the electoral authority. But, you know, he's claimed he's won, and he's spent the last couple months just crushing any kind of dissent or opposition in the country. There's been dead because of the protests. The opposition candidate, Edmondo Gonzalez, has been basically had to hide in various European embassies until he signed a deal that let him leave the country. He's strongly implied, but in order to be, the part of the deal was he's tried to document it, so that he recognized the results, but he is strongly intimated that he feared for not just his own safety, but that of his family, because these were embassies that were cordoned off by Venezuelan security services. We couldn't really get out without, you know, Maludo's blessing. And Maludo has increasingly become a sort of international pariah. It's really strange his relationship, even with Brazil, which is a historical traditional ally under Lula. But basically, the poor problem is the protests have largely petered out because of the repression, and for a system like this, the kind of collapse you need affections among the elite. That's the most traditional way versus unless the two break apart. And the military has been early politicized to the point where it's very clear at the point that the military is not going to have a kind of mass affections to any kind of opposition, but or any big division that would lead to it's collapse. So I think Maludo is there until he no longer wants to be or easily dies, unfortunately. And so what in terms of the opposition, I mean, you talked a little bit about some of the methods that they use to sort of prove the election was fraudulent and looking at, you know, what happened the precincts versus the national level. Where did they go from here? That's a great question. I don't know if even they have a clear house. There was an interview with Reuters with Michael Gonzalez, the opposition coalition candidate. And, you know, he was kind of pressed and he's like, well, I mean, I keep, you know, calling for, you know, international blah, blah, blah, and the Reuters person kept asking, well, what would he want to happen next? Like, are you proposing sanctions? He's like, not getting into detail. Not getting into details. We kept puncing it. And I get the impression that they're kind of like figuring out what the next steps are. Because the election has the election wasn't an entirely important exercise to be clear. Like, it works. Maludo, who has been consolidating power and being more and more authoritarian over the years to just kind of fully take off the masks and just rule purely by fiat, right? By personal fiat. So it does have that impact, but the goal was not just have that impact as a minimum, but also to bring that exposure to inspire divisions in the government, operations, especially the military and police. But that didn't happen. So it's not really clear what options they have. Venezuela's, you know, U.S. is probably going to spot sanctions back on. Venezuela is going to be more isolated than before, but I'm not really sure what they can realistically do unless they want to go up into the the andes and, you know, take up arms. I think that's, basically, the only option they have left, aside from just calling for more sanctions and waiting it out. All right. From Venezuela, let's turn to Cuba, which is where you are. And starting in March, there were protests in Cuba primarily in Santiago, talking in concerned about food shortages and power outages. What's going on in Cuba now? You're in based in Havana, and tell us what's happening. Many of your listeners are probably familiar. There are many, maybe, familiar with the period of economic collapse. All of the U.S. S.S. S.S. are provided millions of global, like, in subsidies in aid to Cuba every year during the late Cold War. And after that, the gears, Cuba's not only was the pre-war trade, but all those subsidies. And Cuba enters into an economic crisis known as the "special period in times of the week." So, basically, more times compared to the "teach time." Many Cubans are calling what's happening right now as a second "special period." And according to many Cubans who have spoken to, you know, in addition to what she personally is, some parts of it are better than the 90s, likely, but other parts of it are already in fact worse. It's, you have, Havana right now is fortunately insulated from the works of what's happening. But the provinces are suffering from 16 to 18-hour-day blackouts. That's all about this, except for this capital to the Havana, where it's too politically sensitive to turn off the lights that much, because every time they do that, you get protests that rock the country, right? So, that's too politically sensitive, but the provinces are getting that. And even in the provinces, you're getting, like, periodic protests. You have inflation is just going crazy. The official exchange rate for dollars is $1 to 125 pesos. The unofficial exchange rate is $1 to 300 and 20 pesos. They had done a salary reform, and that had raised wages to about, like, 50 to 60 dollars a month. But now it's back to, like, $10 a month in real wage firms, because of just inflation and wheat and everything. Hospitals are barely able to run. They're putting off surgery. People are being asked to get family and friends abroad to send supplies. It's a country on what feels like the verge of collapse, but it doesn't collapse. If this is a very strange moment, it's actually very, it's very hard to see the country's light of this right now over the last few years. All right. We've been speaking with historian Andra Sebastian Perterre. You can read more of Andra's work at perterre.substack.com. Thank you so much for joining us on the 8 o'clock buzz. Thanks so much for having me.
Andrés Sebastian Pertierra