Everybody seems to blame it on Maduro, but I keep reading that in fact it was the US, and the UK Intelligence Initiative.
This is delusional
Research about Leopoldo Lopes, for example.
In 2014 he was leading manifestations against Maduro. Maduro said Leopoldo lopes was going to make a coup. So Leopoldo lopes decided to go to authorities by his own and face justice .
He was arrested, and is still under house arrest now. He spend years in jail, faced many human rights violations. He was one of the favorites to become president in a possible election
If Maduro did that once, he can do again.
Delusional remains short... What elections? The unconstitutional elections done ahead of schedule by the usurper? The ones where the usurper installed his parallel congress? Where his people got "8 million votes" despite the voting centers remaining empty the whole day, and Maduro himself barely reaching 5 million votes when he got "elected" in 2013, back when the economy wasn't ruined by himself and people were much happier with what they had?
How about the National Assembly elections where the opposition won by landslide in 2015 only to be immediately unrecognized by Maduro's regime?
THIS election in 2015 was the last legitimate election, from that election came the current National Assembly, who's current president is Juan Guaidó. Since then, Maduro's term ended and yet he refuses to leave under the facade of being victim while forcing the people to live in the worst conditions in history.
It is Maduro who re-elected himself in the circus he did last year, and nobody recognizes that, except those who have something to gain be keeping him in power. Certainly not the people of Venezuela...
Oh yes, who blocked them? Maduro's regime declared the opposition leaders: imperialists, terrorists, traitors, prosecuted them without due process, imprisoned people who spent months in a cell without seeing a lawyer, others tortured... Do you dare read the OAS report?
SECRETARY GENERAL PRESENTS UPDATED REPORT ON VENEZUELA TO THE PERMANENT COUNCIL March 14, 2017 - Washington D.C.
Some excerpts:
The Venezuelan government has demonstrated a systematic pattern of abuse against those who dare to express an opinion contrary to that of the government. Political opponents and critics of the government continue to face imprisonment, and the total number of political prisoners at a given time has grown as the government arrests, detains and releases its opponents at will. Arbitrary detention, holding individuals without access to family or legal advice, secret detentions, inadequate prison conditions, unfair trials and torture are all extreme violations to Article 1 of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man: “Every human being has the right to life, liberty and the security of his person.”
According to the Observatory, the torture was carried out without regard to age, sex, profession, social status, or even physical disability. An important detail that has characterized this repressive period was the enjoyment with which some officials tortured their victims, displaying sexual arousal or the wish to inflict pain on open wounds using objects or their own hands, among other details. Most victims were tortured so that they would make accusations against political leaders of the opposition or reveal links to political parties and protests. They were also used as examples to send a message. There were repeated claims of the use of asphyxiation with plastic bags, electricity, beatings with sticks, bats, helmets, machetes, kicking, attempts or threats to burn the victims, burns with lighters or metallic objects, and inhumane positions such as kneeling or having hands and feet tied together for long periods of time. Some victims were hung in order to be beaten or given electric shocks, while others were beaten and brutalized inside military tanks, others were sprayed with toxic gases directly in the face to asphyxiate them. Many were the subjected to sexual torture such as rape, threats of rape, lewd acts, and undressing, and the majority were isolated for the first 48 hours of their detention or even longer, without being given the right to call their lawyer and family.
On July 22, 2016, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR) issued a statement in which it regretted the “urgent situation of extreme scarcity and shortages of medicine, medical supplies, and food in Venezuela. This situation has led to a significant deterioration in living conditions in the country and an increase in violence, which results in harm to people’s health, personal integrity, and life, to the detriment of the rights protected by the inter-American and universal human rights instruments.”
In an interview with Venevisión on December 7, 2016, the president of the Venezuelan Medical Federation, Douglas León Natera, said that the public hospital network had very serious structural and financial problems owing to the shortage of supplies, medicines, and financial resources. “The entire public system is bankrupt, which is translating into a health and welfare crisis,” said Natera. He explained that clinics have just 3% of the medical supplies they need, and patients and their family members therefore have to buy most of the supplies in order to be treated at a hospital. “Patients have to bring gauze, IV fluids and even food […]. There has been a veiled privatization of the health system en Venezuela,” he added.
Venezuela closed out last year with more than 28,000 violent deaths in the country and a homicide rate of 91 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Venezuelan Observatory on Violence. By 2014, Caracas had already become the most violent city on the planet, according to a ranking of the 50 most violent cities in the world published by the Mexican NGO Citizens' Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice (CCSPJP). In 2015, according to InSight Crime, the capital city’s homicide rate hit 120 per 100,000.
In November 2015, two nephews of Venezuela’s first lady, Efraín Campos and Francisco Flores, were arrested by Drug Enforcement Administration Agents in Haiti for conspiring to smuggle as much as 1,700 pounds of cocaine into the United States. A year later they were found guilty by a Federal District Court in New York. They each face 10 years in prison. This case also highlighted the Military’s direct involvement in the shipment and transportation of drugs. According to Insight Crime and other news sources, piloting the jet that took the President’s nephews to Haiti were members of the presidential security and transportation unit—the Casa Militar—Pedro Miguel Rodriguez, an active lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan Air Force, and military official Pablo Urbano Perez.
For example, in its World Report 2017, Human Rights Watch explains, “the judiciary has ceased to function as an independent branch of government. Members of the Supreme Court have openly rejected the principle of the separation of powers, and publicly pledged their commitment to advancing the government’s political agenda.” The TSJ resolutions to annul National Assembly actions, which undermine the effective separation and independence of powers, are also mentioned in Amnesty International’s annual report. “The powers of the opposition-led National Assembly were severely limited by resolutions from the TSJ, which hindered the ability of MPs to represent Indigenous Peoples,” according to the international nongovernmental human rights organization’s 2016/2017 report.
Maduro's regime is a de-facto government that only remains in place by force of military power. The de-jure government rightfully belongs to Juan Guaidó, who WILL call for FAIR elections (as mandated by the constitution) once the usurper and his band of criminals are gone.
