Venezuela faces two significant events next month: a presidential election and the announcement of the winner of a U.S. court-ordered auction for PDV Holding, the Venezuelan owner of Citgo Petroleum. The Caracas military dictatorship is attempting to manipulate the July 28 election and blame the democratic opposition for Citgo’s potential loss. This narrative overlooks that the auction is to compensate for expropriations made by Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution. The electoral environment in Venezuela is skewed, with political activists jailed and the popular opposition candidate, María Corina Machado, blocked from running. Despite this, substitute candidate Edmundo González Urrutia leads in polls by over 20 points. However, dictator Nicolás Maduro is unlikely to concede and may rig the results, as evidenced by new polling stations in controlled areas and potential voter harassment. Twenty-eight former heads of state and allies like Brazil and Colombia have urged Maduro to respect the election results. Citgo, a symbol of Venezuelan pride, is central to the regime’s plan to justify a fraudulent election result, blaming the opposition for creditor claims. However, this doesn’t align with voter surveys showing strong opposition against Maduro. The Chávez-Maduro regime, in power since 1999, has amassed over $140 billion in external debt. Chávez’s expropriation spree led to investor disputes, with Canadian company Crystallex winning a $1.4 billion arbitration award, leading to the current auction of PDV Holding shares. The U.S. previously protected Citgo during the interim Guaidó government, but once that effort failed, Venezuela had to face the repercussions of its actions. Next month’s auction, if it proceeds, will be a critical juncture in Venezuela’s ongoing economic and political crisis. Original text by Mary Anastasia O’Grady, published in-> Microsoftstar
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