Only the bond that María Corina Machado achieved with the majority of Venezuelan society can explain the hope placed by an old historian, like the one who writes, in the defeat of Nicolás Maduro in an electoral process. A woman leading the masses, a truly unprecedented event, something never seen since the foundation of the Republic, allowed hope to fly. That the poor and the rich gathered around her in the vastness of a territory that had never shown uniformity in its political preferences, also encouraged the possibility of a spectacular victory. If to such matters we add the nausea that the regime already caused in the heart of a society plundered by the “revolution”, the act of voting was all that was missing.
But we had a mistake in our calculations: only a fragment of society was changing or evolving. Only the majority of its body was mutating, without the head being ready for a metamorphosis. On the contrary, the upper part armed to the teeth felt the danger that the appearance of a formidable enemy meant and allowed it to play with the fantasy of its victory in order to shoot it to kill later. Not only did it announce the formalities of an electoral process, but also, with all the finesse in the world, it let pass the possibility of a candidacy that would establish the leadership of the debuting star. A limited or controlled electoral process, but an alternative selection that should not be disregarded because it was a concession, a gift. A process in whose prologue the press was tied up, despite the fact that it was already super-involved, to complete the subject. But grasping at least a mistake, they say around here, and we dedicated ourselves to fattening the illusion of victory.
It was an illusion only at the beginning, because it became a concrete reality while María Corina Machado was touring the country to get votes for Edmundo González Urrutia, an emergency candidate that nobody knew and who became a powerful symbol of change. The impact of the unusual couple was so great, their acceptance so enthusiastic, that the regime had no choice but to resort to the expedient of a gross trap to stop their race. All serious predictions guaranteed the victory of the opposition, without any doubt, or there was no need for such predictions because it was something that was already part of the atmosphere. From there, the party ended in a gruesome way, through a scandalous electoral fraud. As is known, the regime changed the vote counts according to its need, in an operation far from the embarrassment that occurred a few hours ago and that was announced at midnight, while people were preparing to go to sleep.
It is an episode of a banana republic, but now it is more appropriate to speak of a pygmy republic. While it grows, while it rises from the still hot ashes, throwing out its dwarfs, because the story that has barely been outlined has not ended. Due to its magnitude, the size of its scandal, it has found more than enough incentives to continue.
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