Venezuela’s election has come and gone. Joseph Stalin, another great socialist leader, is often attributed to say, “It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” That attitude appears to have been adopted by Venezuela’s great socialist leader, Nicolas Maduro:
The company that has provided voting machines and software for Venezuela’s elections for more than a decade said that turnout figures for Sunday’s vote to elect an assembly to rewrite the nation’s constitution were overstated.
“Based on the robustness of our system, we know, without any doubt, that the turnout of the recent election for a national constituent assembly was manipulated,” Antonio Mugica, Smartmatic’s chief executive officer, told reporters in London. “This would not have occurred if the auditors of all political parties had been present at the different stages of the election.”
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council held the widely criticized vote over the weekend and claimed about 8.1 million people participated. The opposition alliance and private polling companies said turnout was less than half that.
Proponents of socialism can now claim that they enjoy the support of the people. While their opponents may point out that they don’t actually enjoy the support of the people, but merely the support of imaginary voters, it won’t matter because they’ll be liquidated soon enough. Meanwhile, Venezuela will have a new constitution that will almost certainly cement the power of the country’s socialist party, which will only make conditions deteriorate faster.