Nicolás Maduro Moros wins third term in quasi election

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“Nicolás Maduro Moros has won a third term in the over sanctioned South American state of Venezuela,” explains Michele Francis, regional director for The RINJ Foundation.

Mr. Maduro accomplished this with his dictatorial style after declaring there would be a bloodbath if he did not win. Insiders FPM has worked with for many years say this decree was actually a message to Maduro’s Cartel of the Suns friends who do his dirty work. If that seems fantastic, read on for an explanation.

Some election observers say the election was well policed and that there was no appearance of election impropriety.

It was a close call. What happened?

Election bickering and physical disputes leading up to and on election day. Official observers say polls were well policed. Long lines raised anxiety and even tempers. Turmoil between competing campaigns have come to characterize this election in Venezuela. Photo credit: Submitted by Michele Francis in Venezuela, video capture from a live broadcast—art, cropping, enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective-Magazine


“Maduro must go,” said supporters of opposition hero Maria Corina Machado and women humanitarians working in Venezuela ahead of the current election. “He is a danger to freedom, to democracy and to human rights. This election was polled as a landslide for the opposition, yet Maduro won,” said Alma, a senior humanitarian worker running women’s shelters for The RINJ Foundation under regional Directors Michel Frances and Cassie Anderson. File Photo from internal Venezuela poster.

The picture and its story: The Cartel of the Suns as the name in the poster signifies, is a drug cartel which has solidified itself and Venezuela as a massive trading center in illegal drugs. Today the product is primarily fentanyl and cocaine.

Under the dictatorial leadership of Nicolás Maduro Moros, Venezuela’s state government  has transitioned from an oil-based GDP to become an illegal drug Cartel, led by senior officers of the Venezuelan military. There is no end of criminal types capable of doing Maduro’s dirty work for him. The Cartel treats him well. The Cartel is happy to have such a senior placed official in the gathering of presidents of South America.

“That anyone expected a fair and free election in Venezuela, as was the case with the opposition party, betrays a lack of deep acceptance of the reality of Maduro’s criminality,” explained Alma.

According to InsightCrime.org, the “Cartel of the Suns” (Cartel de los Soles) derives its name from the golden sun-shaped insignia worn by generals in the Venezuelan National Guard (Guardia Nacional Bolivariana – GNB). The term emerged in 1993 following investigations into drug trafficking by two National Guard generals, the anti-drug chief Ramón Guillén Dávila and his successor Orlando Hernández Villegas. Presently, the term encompasses all government officials implicated in the drug trade, a network that extends throughout the state’s various organs. Source on Cartel de los Soles para.: Drug Trafficking Within the Venezuelan Regime: The ‘Cartel of the Suns’ (insightcrime.org)

An election that could have gone either way if it were a real election.

“The President of the CNE electoral authority here in Venezuela,” explains Michele Frances, “is Mr. Elvis Amoroso, who is highly respected only by President Maduro for running a tight election system. He says with 85% of the ballots in that President Maduro has now a new and a third six-year term in office. Surprisingly, Maduro got 51.2 percent of the vote while the opposition gentleman, Mr. Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, has so far, 44.2 percent of the vote. That was surprising because the polls before the election said the opposition leader was going to win, but those polls are done also by suspected opposition, meaning the polls might be enthusiastically conducted in favour of the opposition,” Ms. Frances said.

“True opposition leader Maria Corina Machado who certainly would have won this election hands down if it was real, was banned from even running. Her replacement was Mr. Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia. This may account for the discrepancies, nevertheless, he was ahead by a wide margin in the polls whereas Maria Corina Machado would have won over 70% of the votes if she had not been banned from running. Honestly, this is a terrible election, and this has been a terrible country under Maduro,” suggested Cassie Anderson who with Ms. Frances run a hospital and three clinics in the Amazon Basin of Venezuela in partnership with a faith-based organization. The RINJ Foundation on its own runs a number of women’s shelters which are very much in demand.

Both The RINJ Foundation and its faith-based-partner have been banned from helping the women population in Venezuela but continue their work, regardless, explains Ms. Cassie Anderson.

“People who do well by Maduro vote for him. He buys a lot of votes in the runup period before elections, like all politicians, especially those in America who buy up everything,” Cassie Anderson added.


Long lines and turmoil between competing campaigns have come to characterize this election in Venezuela. Photo credit: Submitted by Michele Francis in Venezuela, video capture from a live broadcast—art, cropping, enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective-Magazine

Democracy rarely breaks down suddenly. In the case of Venezuela, the process began in the late 1980s.  “But from the 1960s through the 1980s, it had a stable two-party democracy and oil-fueled prosperity. Those pillars collapsed in 1989, after oil prices tanked and the country faced a debt crisis,”  writes Kristina Mani, of Oberlin College and Conservatory

“Venezuela is bleeding people today,” says Alma, a humanitarian worker who runs the auxiliary support group for Michele Francies at a woman’s shelter somewhere undisclosed in the Amazon Basin of Venezuela. Alma refers to a mass emigration from Venezuela to anywhere they can reach beginning with vigour in 2014 and exacerbated in 2019.

Putting the exodus in context, in September 2018, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ regional representative had compared the Venezuelan crisis with the migrant and refugee fiasco “caused by the Syrian Civil War”.

“Venezuela’s crime rate is a major cause of emigration. According to sociologist Tomás Páez, Venezuelan parents and grandparents encourage young people to leave the country for their own safety. Venezuela deteriorated under Hugo Chávez, with political instability and violence increasing,” say Wikipedia Authors.

“It is so bad that all the neighbouring countries have closed all the borders surrounding Venezuela. We have been lucky to have some help from Colombia to import medical supplies, much of which has been donated by people in Canada, and some Russians have helped us trek the goods inland. Otherwise, everything gets stolen by rogue military people of the Maduro junta,” Alma explained in 2020.

What is important about Alma’s information is that for this election, the Maduro junta has, in a gag-worthy decree, forbidden any overseas voting.

The picture and its story: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva receives the presidents of South American countries, at the Itamaraty Palace, in Brasília (DF), on May 30, 2023. At the invitation of the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the leaders of the South American countries met in Brasilia to exchange views and perspectives for cooperation and integration in South America.

President Nicolás Maduro is on the far left. Official Photograph: Fotografia oficial dos Presidentes dos países da América do Sul. Palácio Itamaraty – Brasília – DF. Photo Credit:  Ricardo Stuckert/PR. Art, cropping, enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective-Magazine