Electoral coup according to Telesur

Here is an interesting “infographic” by Telesur. It shows the “five stages of the electoral coup in Venezuela,” which would be staged by the opposition for the December 6 legislative elections.

“Why are United States officials so sure that there will be a complex scenario in Venezuela? Because there is a five stage plan to stage an electoral coup,” informs Telesur.

The first stage is a media strategy using “mass psychology.” This media strategy aims at producing “manipulated tendencies [showing] an opposition victory.” Recent polls that show a 35 points lead for the opposition can surly be dismissed as part of the conspiracy. Also part of this stage is the “magnifying” of issues such as insecurity, scarcity, and the violation of human rights. These are issues are most obviously not a real problem in Venezuela and are part of a media construction.

The second stage of the plot is to denounce an electoral fraud. In order to do this the opposition is asking for “intervention of international observers and the United Nationals System.”

The “consolidation” of International support for the opposition is part of the third stage. The usual conspirators such as Alvaro Uribe and Felipe González are mentioned, but also organizations such as the Konrad Adenauer, and the Friederich Ebert foundations and FreedonHouse.

Opposition street mobilization is the fourth stage, “especially in the State of Táchira and other frontier states.” According to the document the opposition has been hording t-shirts “with the symbols of the PSUV”. Opposition militants would dress as pro-government supporters and attack electoral centers and State media facilities. The document directly accuses an opposition candidate for the State of Barinas, Freddy Superlano, a person “with close links to Tintori,” as the “strong man” for this part of the plot.

The fifth and last stage will “achieve that medical centers are not in condition to open during the days before and after the elections to take care of the wounded.” How the opposition could effectively close government controlled public health facilities, is not explained in the document.

The main evidence of this conspiracy is, for Telesur, are recent declarations by John Kelly, current chief of the United States Southern Command, and by Thomas Shanon, Counselor of the United States Department of State, that the “White House is closely following the Venezuelan electoral process,” and a recent visit to Caracas of a “parliamentary rights-wing European group,” which met the local opposition.

The source used by Telesur for this document is also interesting: Hugo Moldiz Mercado, a Bolivian politician who was briefly Minister of Government in his country in 2015.

(Thanks to @brolidolli)