Do you believe it?

Maduro celebrates his election victory alongsie Maradona.

The country suffers hyperinflation a soaring homicide rate and a shrinking economy. Stores and pharmacies are bare of food, medicines and toilet paper. It's hemorraging people, who are fleeing this disaster area.

And yet the president, who is notoriously corrupt and lives high while his people suffer, got reelected by a landslide.

Does anybody at all believe that Sunday's presidential election results in Venezuela were fair and democratic?

Venezuelan president/dictator Nicolas Maduro and his crowd may have read the recent and interesting book 'How to Rig an Election,' by two British academics. The book observes that old fashioned ballot box stuffing is now passé. Instead, today's authoritarian leaders stack the deck in their own favor before a single vote gets cast, thru techniques such as registering more voters in regions where they are popular and setting up more voting stations in those same areas.

In Venezuela, the government started preparing for the election many months ago by imprisoning or banning from public office the opposition's strongest potential candidates. Maduro also linked the reception of food aid - vital in a starving nation - to allegiance to Maduro. Whether or not the government really knew which candidate voters supported didn't matter: It was the impression that counted.

That was also why the government set up red tents outside of voting stations - sometimes so close that they violated election rules - for government loyalists to check in after voting. The message was clear: 'We're rewarding you for voting for us.' Government offices also required public employees to attend pro-Maduro rallies.

These were all crude attempts to harness the still-great public resources of the nation with the world's largest oil reserves in favor of Maduro.

The government might not even have needed to manipulate the vote counts, but it probably did, anyway. After all, many election observers said that the electoral commission's reported 47% voter turnout seemed wildly exaggerated in light of the many near-vacant voting stations. After a previous election, the voting machine company, Smartmatic, charged that

Maduro has good reason to hold on to power. (His new term ends in 2025.) He and his buddies are living high while his people suffer. And, if he were to be overthrown, his enemies would surely try to prosecute Maduro for corruption and human rights violations, forcing him to take refuge with few remaining friends, in Cuba, Syria or Russia.

Instead, Venezuela will sink into even deeper misery. And hundreds of thousands or millions more Venezuelans will flood into neighboring nations. And Venezuela will lose a generation of its brightest, most motivated people.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Venezuelan Opposition's Moment

A selfie with the crowd in back, as Venezuelans voted today on Plaza Bolivar.

'The people decide!

Colombia has filled during recent years with Venezuelan political and economic refugees, and today they showed their strength. Thousands filled Plaza Bolivar for a plebiscite designed to weaken Venezuela's increasingly hapless, corrupt and authoritarian government.

The opposition's positions will win overwhelmingly - and the government will ignore it and continue
with carreening toward dictatorship. On July 30, the government plans to hold a vote vote to elect an assembly to rewrite the nation's Constitution. But the voting system and representation were designed by the Venezuelan government to guarantee itself a majority.

The people decide!, on three
questions designed to
weaken the government.

Interestingly, the Maduro government has recently suspended regional elections it was sure to lose, arguing that with oil prices low it could not afford to hold the vote. However, it did miraculously find the money to hold the constitutional assembly vote it plans to wind.

The government in Caracas has also used its packed Supreme Court to nullify all decisions taken by parliament, which is overwhelmingly dominated by the opposition.

Today's ballot, designed and promoted by the MUD opposition coalition to Venezuelan Pres. Nicolás Maduro, contained three questions:

- Do you reject the constitutional assembly planned by Nicolas Maduro without the previous approval of the Venezuelan people?

- Do you demand that the armed forces and all public functionaries obey the 1999 Constitution and back the decisions of the National Assembly.

'Gochos united in Bogotá.' Gochos are people
born in the Venezuelan state of Tachira.

- Do you approve of the public authorities and the creation of a national union government and the holding of free and transparent elections to restore the constitutional order.

Many observers believe that in Venezuela power ultimately rests with the military. Opposition leaders argue that the government has violated the 1999 Constitution, written under the leadership of the now-deceased Hugo Chavez and would like the military to refuse to obey the government.

.Whatever happens in Venezuela: Continued crisis, outright dictatorship, revolution or civil war, it will mean huge impacts on Colombia, in terms of trade and immigration.

In a celebratory mood, Venezuelans oppositionists line up to vote on Plaza Bolivar.

Painting Venezuelan flags.

A Venezuelan exile's sign: 'Maduro, it's your fault that my children miss their grandparents.'

Venezuelan government opponents pack the Plaza Bolivar.

Venezuelans walk to vote.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

And They Should Know!

'To the streets to fight, to the ballot boxes to protest. Vote empty.'

They're telling you so themselves: Leave your ballot blank! And they are the Socialist Party, who should know very well what happens when people don't vote, or the vote is made irrelevent: Stalin, Mao, Castro and, maybe soon, Ecuador and Venezuela.

Bogotá is in the full swing of mayoral campaigning, and, as always, the options could be better: There's Clara Lopez, seen as a continuation of the current, unpopular Petro administration; Enrique Peñalosa, an ex-mayor with a personality problem, but who's remembered as a good administrator; and Rafael Pardo, a career politician with an erratic political history. And then there are others with no chance.

Do the Socialists have a better option? Probably not. But they do have a plan: Revolution! And while that may feel good, we know where it's taken us.

'Enough already! Vote blank.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Empty Vote

A mural by the entrance to the National University urges passersby to 'Vote en Blanco.'

You've probably seen the signs around town: Signs urging Colombians to 'Vote en Blanco': to leave your vote empty.

'Express your indignation.
Colombia votes blank.'

The goal is to persuade more people to leave their ballots blank than vote for the most popular candidate. (However, according to another interpretation of the law, more than half of the ballots must be left blank.) If the blank vote wins, nobody's elected and the election is repeated - with all different candidates.

To the throw-em-all-out crowd, this sounds great. But it would cause wholesale political chaos and uncertainty. And what reason do we have to think that the new, inexperienced politicians elected would be better than the previous ones? In Bolivia, where corruption was rife, friends told me that they always voted to reelect those holding office 'Because they've already filled their pockets thru corruption, while the new ones enter office with their pockets empty.'

Fortunately, there is a better way to replace bad politicians: Vote for somebody else.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours