Boris’ fury at ‘rigged’ election in Corbyn’s socialist paradise
BORIS Johnson yesterday threatened new sanctions to ‘tighten the economic screw’ on Venezuela’s socialist regime after it was accused of rigging Sunday’s presidential election.
The Foreign Secretary said the vote to re- elect Nicolas Maduro – who has previously been praised by Jeremy Corbyn – until at least 2024 was ‘deeply flawed’.
Venezuela has descended into chaos and economic ruin under Mr Maduro, who has ruthlessly crushed dissent. More than a million people have fled the country in the past two years and inflation has reached 14,000 per cent. In spite of this Venezuela’s socialist government has been hailed by the Labour leadership.
Mr Johnson, who was attending a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in Argentina, said the prospect of fresh sanctions was growing.
‘We will be talking about what we can do,’ he said. ‘The feeling I get from talking to my counterparts is that they see no alter
‘Neither free nor fair’
native to economic pressure and it’s very sad because obviously the downside of sanctions is that they can affect the population that you don’t want to suffer. But in the end, as one politician in this area said, things have got to get worse before they get better – and we may have to tighten the economic screw on Venezuela.’
Mr Johnson said the elections were ‘neither free nor fair’ and had ‘further eroded Venezuelan democracy’. ‘ I am disappointed, but not surprised, that Maduro pressed ahead with deeply flawed elections to secure his own survival,’ he said.
‘The condemnation of the international community is loud and clear. We shall work closely with our EU and regional partners in the coming weeks to determine how we can continue to support a political resolution.’
Yesterday the National Electoral Council announced that with more than 92 per cent of polling stations reporting, Mr Maduro won nearly 68 per cent of the votes on Sunday, beating his nearest challenger Henri Falcon by more than 40 points.
As the results were being announced, residents of Caracas protested just a few blocks from where Mr Maduro’s supporters were celebrating.
Mr Falcon accused the government of buying votes and using dirty tricks to boost turnout among poor voters hardest-hit by widespread food shortages and hyperinflation in what was once Latin America’s wealthiest nation, which also has the world’s largest known oil reserves.
Mr Maduro faced international condemnation last summer as he launched a brutal crackdown that included putting thousands in jail. Disturbing footage showed armed gangs on motorbikes and security forces beating, abducting and killing opponents of the president on the streets of the South American country. Mr Maduro, 55, was first elected in 2013 after his predecessor Hugo Chavez’s death from cancer. On the day Mr Chavez died in 2013, Mr Corbyn put down an Early Day Motion in the Commons praising his ‘huge contribution… to conquering poverty’. At a vigil Mr Corbyn added: ‘Chavez showed us that there is a different and a better way of doing things.’
In 2015, at a London rally for the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, he said: ‘There is an alternative to austerity and cuts, and enriching the richest and impoverishing the poorest, and it is called socialism.’
When asked about Mr Maduro in the same year, he said: ‘Venezuela gives every child a future, a school, a doctor – a chance.’ On his website during his first contest for the Labour leadership he praised its ‘success for radical policies’.
Yesterday a coalition of 14 nations from throughout the Americas, including Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, said they would not recognise the election result in Venezuela and pledged to ramp up diplomatic and economic pressure.
The EU has imposed sanctions on seven top Venezuelan officials. Mr Johnson said that after the UK has left the EU it will have more freedom to impose its own sanctions in situations such as that unfolding in Venezuela.