Tyrant Nicolás Maduro says he is going to win the Venezuelan elections 'by any means necessary,' what does this mean?

The tyrant Nicolás Maduro, de facto head of Venezuela, said this February 4, in an event commemorating the 32 years of the coup d'état with which Hugo Chávez came to power, that Chavismo is going to beat the opposition in the elections, "By any means necessary."

"The team wins. We are going to win by any means necessary. When they put them on us, how they put them on us[the elections], the people are organized to win," he said in front of supporters.

Maduro is referring to the presidential elections that, according to the Constitution, should be held in the second half of this year. However, they are not yet regulated, and, more importantly, they do not have conditions to make them free and transparent.

One of the obstacles is that Maduro is seeking to compete against an adversary of his choosing. Through its Supreme Court of Justice, it disqualified the main opposition leader, María Corina Machado, even though in October of last year, the Chavista regime committed to agreements with the United States to allow Machado to compete in elections with minimal conditions.

Not only did the Chavista regime not comply, but in recent weeks, persecution against dissent has intensified. And now, in front of a crowd of supporters and surrounded by the State and military leadership, Maduro assures that he will triumph no matter what. But what does "by any means necessary" really mean?

The Venezuelan tyranny, like the Cuban or North Korean one, is sustained by flawed electoral processes, where dissent has no real opportunity. This has been the case since 2013 when a fraud took the victory from the then-opposition presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski. The opposition, backed by evidence and claims from prestigious international institutions, denounced fraud and electoral manipulation in other processes such as regional elections, the Constituent Assembly in 2017, the presidential elections in 2018 or the referendum against Guyana last year.

To carry out electoral fraud, the regime resorts to its repressive apparatus, be it outlawing candidates, kidnapping dissidents or killing protesters in the streets who protest the theft of an election, as in 2013, 2014 or 2017.

When Nicolás Maduro says he will win the elections by any means necessary, it is a direct threat. He recognizes that he is willing to use all the power of the State, including violence and terrorism, to remain in power.

And such a threat cannot be taken lightly. Maduro's is a regime accused of narcoterrorism by the United States Department of Justice and investigated by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. There are thousands of reports of cases of torture, disappearance and persecution in Venezuela.

There were various reactions to Maduro's threat. One of them was that of the former vice president of Colombia, Marta Lucía Ramírez, who said that "the 'we are going to win by any means necessary' of Maduro and braggarts who claim to be above the law and institutions is the biggest threat to the progress of future generations, and they must be stopped."

"'We are going to win by any means necessary,' says narco-dictator Nicolás Maduro. Where are the leftists who 'defend' democracy?" asks Colombian senator María Fernanda Cabal.