Maduro warns that his victory will determine whether there will be a “bloodbath” in Venezuela

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said this week that his electoral victory will prevent the country from falling into civil war.

“The destiny of Venezuela in the 21st century depends on our victory on July 28. If they do not want Venezuela to fall into a bloodbath, into a fratricidal civil war produced by the fascists, let us guarantee the greatest success, the greatest electoral victory in the history of our people,” Maduro said Tuesday at a rally in La Vega, a working-class area in western Caracas.

In addition, in a video circulating on social media, in which Maduro is seen sitting with his wife, Cilia Flores, and a group of people in a house supposedly in La Vega, Maduro is heard saying that he has prevented a civil war in the country.

“Because if we tell the people, the Armed Forces and the police forces to go out into the streets, then there will be a revolution like in the 20th century, popular and armed, it will be another revolution. It would be inevitable, if the fascist right comes to power, a popular and armed revolution would be inevitable,” Maduro is heard saying in the video replicated by a correspondent of Telesur In Venezuela.

On several occasions, Maduro’s government has accused the opposition of wanting to repeat scenes from 2014 and 2017, when anti-government protests were reported, including road closures, which were repressed by security forces.

The opposition led by María Corina Machado has denounced a wave of repression and insists that it is seeking a political transition, but through electoral means.

“They will be left alone in this agenda of violence, they will never take us there,” said opposition political leader Biaggio Pilieri, member of the Democratic Unitary Platform, a coalition of opposition parties, on Thursday.

The statements came after Machado denounced an attack against him, after the vehicles in which he and his team usually traveled were found vandalized and with their brakes tampered with, just hours after his security chief was killed. arbitrarily detained.

“This is another level, this is something different from all the other things they have done to us, the level has risen. But just as the level of attack has risen, the level of criminal action has risen, and to that same extent, popular support for Edmundo González and María Corina Machado has risen,” Pilieri continued.

At least 72 people linked to the electoral campaign of presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, backed by Machado, winner of the opposition presidential primary but disqualified from holding public office, have been arrested since the campaign officially began on July 4.

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