The New Dark Age

Yoselina Guevara

On August 2, 2024, the National Electoral Council (CNE) issued a second bulletin with the data from the transmission of 96.87% of the electoral records, whose figures showed the following results: the candidate Nicolás Maduro Moros obtained 6,408,844 votes and the opposition candidate Edmundo González 5,326,104 votes. Thus, the current Venezuelan president was reelected for a new presidential term with a difference of 1,082,740 votes, an irreversible trend and impossible to overcome by his closest opponent.

As it was already foreseeable, the stateless and fascist Venezuelan opposition did not accept defeat, trying to play the fraud card through the delegitimization of the CNE , i.e. the referee , adding to it the calls for fratricidal hatred, chaos and destabilization of the country with the implementation of a macabre plan of terrorism operated in situ by criminals paid by the opposition with money ($150 per day) and drugs, according to their own confession ; but at the same time a whole deployment through social networks with hate messages, location of leaders, and allegations of an alleged fraud that so far they have not been able to prove. All this sought to generate confusion, terror, vandalism and chaos that would lead to the overthrow of the Venezuelan constitutional government.

We witnessed a cyber coup d’état, which generated a parallel reality on the Internet, with large non-existent demonstrations by the opposition. What were true and real were the more than 100 vandalic actions that were committed in different cities by groups paid specifically for this purpose.

The opposition narrative was already prepared, long before the elections were held, the eternal mantra of Maduro as dictator, electoral fraud, etc. The background framework was provided, not by the traditional media as in 2002, but by the social networks, a much more powerful and global campaign tool, which in this case served not only as spokespersons but also as a worldwide sounding board for the opposition’s objectives, which once again they have not been able to achieve, because they still do not understand that the will of a people, which has been the cradle of Liberators, is unbreakable and cannot be bent.

Hacker attack and terror comanditos

This time the elections in Venezuela counted with the intervention of billionaire Elon Musk in alliance with Maria Corina Machado, a stateless Venezuelan oligarch and member of the opposition, who will surely be shown to be involved in the massive attack on the transmission system of the National Electoral Council, an operation that continues not only to the electoral body but also to the pages of the main Venezuelan institutions and public administration services, in a global and multifactorial attack on the Venezuelan State.

President Nicolás Maduro, in the early morning of July 29, after the first bulletin of the CNE which gave him as the winner, denounced that the CNE was being the victim of a hacker attack which “had broken into the system to prevent the transmission of data in order to provoke an electoral blackout”.  The expert Victor Theoktisto, a computer specialist, explained through the press that the attack reported by the President was what is technically called a denial of service, and it was carried out from the Republic of North Macedonia. This operation consists of saturating the networks with an enormous amount of spurious traffic to prevent the transmission of the most important information. Although it is impossible to alter the content of what was being transmitted, it was possible to reduce the connections, slowing down the whole voting totalization process. A situation foreseen by the intelligence agencies, with the help of the operators that was eventually solved, but all this caused a notable delay, the emergence of doubts in the population as well as nervousness and anguish, more exacerbated in the sectors of the recalcitrant right wing that had developed great hopes according to what María Corina Machado shouted, who considered the opposition candidate Edmundo González as the winner.

Almost immediately after announcing the figures corresponding to the first bulletin that awarded the victory to Nicolás Maduro, the opposition sector commanded by Machado, who already had the insurrectional plan mounted, chanted “fraud” and gave way to the activation of the so-called Guarimbas “urban terrorism” which on this occasion were led by the so-called Comanditos, previously organized by the Venezuelan opposition and which consisted for the public opinion in groups of defense of the opposition vote affiliated to Edmundo Gonzalez, but internally they were integrated by young delinquents, who had arrived from Colombia, some of Venezuelan nationality and who had the order to generate chaos by burning buildings, looting, confronting the security forces but above all harassing and beating the supporters of Chavism.

There were two days, July 29 and 30, of pitched battle, dismantling the so-called Comanditos which were distributed throughout the main cities of Venezuela, and whose terrorist operations left considerable damage to educational institutions, including 12 universities, 7 pre-schools, 21 primary schools and 34 high schools; damage to 250 police modules, 3 hospitals, 30 outpatient clinics and 1 pharmacy. Attacks on 6 centers of the Comités Local de Abastecimiento y Producción (CLAP), a government subsidized food program, as well as on public transportation facilities, with damage to 11 stations of the Metropolitan Underground Transportation Service of Caracas and 38 buses, 27 monuments were vandalized, and attacks on 10 headquarters of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and 10 offices of the National Electoral Council, 2 mayoral offices were set on fire. But also two femicides committed under hate crimes due to the fact that the victims were local leaders of chavismo; Cirila Gil (Bolivar State) and Mayauri Coromoto Silva (Aragua State); as well as numerous wounded , and two deceased members of the security forces.

Old strategy : Guaidó 2.0

The strategies of cognitive warfare, the cyber coup d’état, the declaration of electoral fraud, and the terrorist acts focused on the streets, did not give the results sought by the Venezuelan fascist opposition; that is to say, to generate a civil war that would lead to the resignation of the government. Thus, after a statement by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in which he recognized Edmundo Gonzalez as the winner of the elections, opposition candidate supported by Maria Corina Machado, they tried to recall the self-proclamation in the style of a Juan Guaidó 2.0 whose purpose was to unconstitutionally generate a change of government by placing a U.S. puppet. It is not the first time that in Washington they try to decide who should preside the Venezuelan government, but as always they underestimate the Venezuelan people, laws and institutional powers. As they could not impose a Guaidó neither will they be able to impose a González; overcome the terrorist acts Venezuela looks to the future in peace,with its reelected president, fascism once again will not pass.

Yoselina Guevara López: Venezuelan social communicator, political analyst, columnist in different international media, whose work has been translated into English, Italian, Greek and Swedish. Winner of the Simon Bolivar 2022 National Journalism Award (Venezuela), special mention Opinion; Anibal Nazoa 2021 National Journalism Award (Venezuela); I Comandante Feliciano 2022 Historical Memory Contest (El Salvador) Third place. X: @lopez_yoselina