There are parallels between Venezuela Maduro and Mnangagwa but none between opposition and populous. NONE! W Mukori

 If you are American and you’re curious about why Trump forced Maduro out, you should read this first...

(An analysis by a Venezuelan who left Venezuela)

Because unless you are Venezuelan, you are missing almost everything that matters.

I am Venezuelan. 

I left my country in 2013, when Hugo Chávez died and Nicolás Maduro took power. 

I didn’t leave because I wanted to “try life abroad.” 

I left because I could see what was coming, and staying meant watching my future shrink year after year.

So when Americans ask, “What do Venezuelans think about Trump forcing Maduro out of the presidency?”

Let me answer that question honestly, without slogans, without moral theater, and without pretending this is simple.

Most Venezuelans feel relief.

Not because we love Trump or because we believe the U.S. does things out of pure love for freedom.

And not because we are naïve about geopolitics, oil, or power.

We feel relief because we have lived through something Americans have never experienced: a country where nothing works, where elections don’t matter, where money stops being money, and where time itself feels broken.

Now, before someone jumps in to say “but not all Venezuelans agree,” let’s be precise.

Yes, there is a minority that doesn’t agree.

And that minority usually falls into one of three groups.

•  Some were doing business with the regime.

•  Some were personally comfortable inside the system and insulated from its worst consequences.

•  And some were pushed into such extreme poverty that survival depended on obedience.

This last group matters, so let me explain it clearly.

Millions of Venezuelans were reduced to depending on a government-issued food box. 

A box with rice, pasta, oil, sometimes expired food. 

A box that arrived irregularly. A box that was used as leverage.

People were told, explicitly or implicitly: “If the government falls, this goes away.”

That is hostage psychology!

When misery reaches that level, people don’t defend the system because they believe in it. 

They defend it because they are afraid of losing the only thing standing between them and hunger.

So yes, some people opposed change. 

But that opposition was not free, informed, or dignified. 

It was coerced by collapse.

The rest of us lived something else entirely.

Since Maduro took power back in 2013, Venezuela lost roughly 80% of its economy. 

We lived through years of hyperinflation where prices didn’t rise monthly or yearly. They rose daily. 

Sometimes hourly.

Salaries became meaningless. Pensions became symbolic. 

Entire professions disappeared.

We protested. We marched. Thousands of people got k* and tens of thousands more were illegally incarcerated as political prisoner.

Just because they didn't like Chavez or Maduro.

We also voted because we believe in democracy.

In 2015, the regime lost parliament by a massive margin. The result was ignored.

We voted again. In 2024, the opposition won overwhelmingly, roughly 70–30. The result was ignored.

Imagine winning every swing state in the U.S. and then being told, “No.”

That is not politics.

And still, we didn’t rise in arms. 

We tried to stay constitutional. Peaceful. Legal.

During all this time, around a third of the country left. 

Families were torn apart. 

My own father died in exile. 

Children grew up without grandparents. 

Entire cities aged overnight.

So when Americans say, “But foreign intervention is wrong,” understand this:

From the inside, Venezuela are already occupied by Iran, China, Cuba, Russia, who are using our beloved country as shelter for terrorism, d* trafficking, and as a foothold in American continent.

No Venezuelan I know is celebrating bombs, humiliation, or chaos.

What we are reacting to is the possibility that the lock might finally open.

We know the U.S. has interests. Oil. Minerals. Strategy. Power.

We are not children.

But we also remember a time when Venezuela was functional, prosperous, and connected to the world. 

When people came to our country instead of fleeing it. 

When a future didn’t feel irresponsible to imagine.

So if you are American and confused by Venezuelans celebrating, don’t ask whether they “support intervention.”

Ask what kind of suffering makes people accept risk in exchange for hope.

Because this reaction didn’t come from ideology but from exhaustion.

Viva Venezuela libre.”

This is powerful! There are many parallel between Venezuela lost 80% of its economy and did Zimbabwe under Zanu PF. Venezuela had hyperinflation with prices changing on an hourly basis: Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation peaked at 500 billion per cent, the world record! In Venezuela elections were rigged, Zimbabwe has never ever held free, fair and credible elections. Never!

The nearest Zimbabwe came to holding free, fair and credible elections was in 2008 when SADC had pressured Zanu PF to implement a wide rage of electoral reforms. When it became clear that Zanu PF had lost March 2008 elections, Mnangagwa and Chiwenga intervened. 

The launched Operation Mavhotera Papi, an electoral coup not only to wrestle power back from the opposition but to punish the people for having dared to reject Zanu PF in the March vote. They ordered a recount of the votes - that took five weeks - the opposition’s parliamentary victory was whittled down to a few seats. Tsvangirai’s 73%, according to Mugabe’s Freudian slip, was whittled down to 47%; enough to force a presidential run off. 

Operation Mavhotera Papi was a military style operation, mobilising war veterans and Zanu PF militia as the foot soldiers responsible to the harassment, destruction of property, beating and/or rape. The heavy duty abducting and murders were carried out by the Army, Police, CIO and Prison Service personal. Millions were internally displaced, hundreds of thousands were beaten and/or raped and over 500 were murdered. 

Mnangagwa and Chiwenga should have gone straight to prison for what they did in Operation Mavhotera Papi. They did not. The two thugs were behind the 2017 military coup that booted Robert Mugabe out of office, the dictator they had kept in power for 37 years! They wanted to take over and they did! 

There is one important and very significant difference between Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The former’s opposition have always sort meaningful democratic change, in Zimbabwe opposition had the golden opportunity to bring about democratic changes during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. They wasted it.

Mugabe bribed Tsvangirai and company with the trappings of high office, the E-class Mercedes Benz limos for all the deputy ministers, ministers, the two deputy PMs and PM Tsvangirai; the generous salaries and allowances all round; US$4m mansion for Tsvangirai; etc.; etc. The MDC leaders were so busy enjoying the gravy train good-life they forgot about implementing the reforms. 

Zimbabweans themselves have failed to realise Zimbabwe’s opposition had sold out. They have been conned to participate in flawed elections to give the Zanu PF legitimacy and perpetuate their own suffering.

Yes there are parallels between the Maduro dictatorship and that of Mnangagwa but none between Venezuela opposition and populous and those in Zimbabwe.