It’s July 29, 2024. The presidential election was stolen last night. There’s a huge commotion outside my window, actually outside everyone’s windows. People banging pots and pans, cacerolazo, people transform their frustration into noise. Someone roars “FRAUDE,” fraud, another one “PA’ MIRAFLORES CARAJO,” “To Miraflores damn it,” referring to the presidential palace. I had no idea that one of the most significant days in the history of Venezuela had just begun.
In the 27 years I’ve been alive, I’d never seen a country-wide protest. I’ve been to plenty of local protests, college protests, even a few city-wide gatherings in which the rivers of people seemed endless. Nothing like this though. It all started the day before. On X, dozens of videos showing election witnesses reporting the results to euphoric crowds were replaced by videos of angry crowds gathering around statues of the former president, revered by the current tyrants as their “father,” to tear them down with hammers and chisels, sometimes simply pushing them off their pedestals.
Freedom was in the air that day. Every Venezuelan, inside the country and abroad, thought that this was it, such a popular rebellion would surely be enough to topple the tyrants of Caracas. I also got my spirits up; it was beautiful to see the indignation over such a blatant fraud turn into popular frenzy. This was no civil war; everyone knew who the common enemy was. The tyrants of Caracas needed to accept election results, pack their bags and leave for good. The great majority of Venezuelans were demanding it in unison.
The most outstanding thing was that no one was leading this protest. After the tyrants announced some mathematically impossible results (percentages were exact figures like 51.2% instead of 51.24156%), the opposition’s leader, Maria Corina Machado, sent a message through all her social networks motivating citizens to remain calm, as she had expected the tyrants to cheat. “We should save our strengths as further political possibilities develop,” said the leader. No call to action, stay put for now. She repeated her famous slogan “Hasta el final,” “To the end.” But Venezuelans had had enough, they had already done their duty, they campaigned and fought bravely for their right to vote, only to get nothing in return.
As any threatened beast would do, the tyrants retaliated, ordering their street gangs to shoot directly at protestors who were gathering around the presidential palace. They would murder 24 people that day. Then they threw more than two thousand people into prison, hoping that would cool things off. At least for a while, it worked. They created a blacklist. If you’re on it and you try to leave the country, your passport is revoked and you are sent to prison on terrorism charges. My friend’s girlfriend was one of the first people targeted. Nobody knew where she was for days after she left for the airport to visit family in Argentina. She finally appeared almost a week later, having been in police custody the whole time. Although she is now prohibited from leaving the country, she considers herself one of the lucky ones since they let her go.
It’s November 27, 2024. The tyrant still holds on to power. Maria Corina is hiding somewhere in the Capital. Edmundo González, the president-elect, had to flee the country after the tyrant’s goons threatened him and his family with prison, which in this case meant torture followed by a kangaroo court.
Walking along the city streets, the mood feels somber. Although we have gone back to our daily routines, the anxious ghost of the stolen election still follows us all. On election day, we proved that most of us reject the tyrants of Caracas. There used to be some doubt about the percentage of the country that wanted them gone; that’s all over now. Regardless their intimidation and cheating, almost 70% voted for the opposition candidate, as it has been confirmed by several international institutions, including the official monitor of the election, the Carter Center.
Unlikely as it sounds, many Venezuelans have put their remaining hopes in a US Navy SEAL turned mercenary leader. Erik Prince founded Blackwater in 1997, a private military contractor offering soldiers for hire. This is not just wishful thinking; on September 16 Prince launched a crowdfunding bid named “Ya casi Venezuela,” “Almost there Venezuela,” to fund an expedition to eliminate the tyrants of Caracas. To date he has gathered $1.4 million of his $10 million goal. A few days ago, I was in a coffee shop while one of the tyrants was speaking on television, one employee pointed at the TV and said: “Erik Prince should just come already and get a piece of that cupcake.”
It’s September 7, the day on which the President-elect fled the country. I remembered the admonition of one of the wisest people I know: “Words are powerful. There’s a big difference between just thinking something and actually saying it out loud. Words that become speech can become reality.” So, as I laid there, sitting hunched in my bed reading the news that the man I had voted for, the man who actually won the election, had just been forced to abandon the country, I thought about all the other political tragedies Venezuela has experienced in the last decade, then I said out loud: “This time will be different. This time will be different. This time will be different.”