Last summer the regime of socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro announced that leading opposition candidate Maria Corina Machado was ineligible to run for office. The country hadn't held an election in five years at that point but Machado was expected to be the leading candidate if the current government agreed to hold an election.

The opposition held a primary to decide who would face off with Maduro and, as expected, Machado won despite the government sending out its colectivo thugs on motorbikes to harass opposition voters.

Machado hoped that a clear win in the primary would embarrass the socialist government into allowing her on the ballot, but in January the country's Supreme Court, which is made up of Maduro loyalists, ruled she would not be allowed to run.

Apparently ruling her out of the process wasn't enough for Maduro. Last week, his government announced that it was arresting her campaign manager and other members of her staff.

Venezuela’s top prosecutor on Wednesday announced arrest warrants for the presidential campaign manager of opposition powerhouse María Corina Machado and eight other staffers, accusing them involvement in a violent anti-government conspiracy...

Saab said the warrants stemmed from what he called a confession by another Machado staff member, Emill Brandt, who was detained earlier this month and whose attorney, Omar Mora, told The Associated Press he has been denied legal counsel of his choice.

Machado, who has insisted on pressing forward with her campaign despite an administrative ban on her holding office, accused the government of unleashing “brutal repression against my campaign teams.”

The announcement of the arrest warrants came hours after an independent panel of experts investigating human rights violations in Venezuela told the U.N. Human Rights Council that the government of President Nicolás Maduro had increased repression efforts against real or perceived opponents ahead of this year’s presidential election.

The arrest of Machado's political coordinator, Dignora Hernández, was caught on video. That's her screaming for help as a group of police shove her into the back of an SUV.

Maduro continua ampliando su expediente en la corte Penal Internacional CPI, cometiendo crímenes de persecución política establecido en el Estatuto de Roma.

Esta vez le tocó el turno a Dignora Hernández, miembro del equipo político de María Corina Machado quien fue golpeada… pic.twitter.com/mEZU0HE4LB

— Nelsored Gonzalez 🇺🇦 (@NelsoredG) March 20, 2024

Machado vowed to keep running despite the obvious attempt to shut down her operation. The next plan was to register a substitute candidate named Corina Yoris who would formally register as the candidate for the opposition party. But the government wouldn't allow that either. 

Candidate Corina Yoris could not be registered by the midnight Monday deadline to be eligible for the July 28 election, said Omar Barboza, a representative of the U.S.-backed Unitary Platform coalition. In a video posted on X, Barboza called that “a violation of the right of the majority of Venezuelans who want to vote for change,” and demanded that the registry be reopened.

Opposition parties on Friday had named Yoris, an 80-year-old unknown newcomer and former academic, as the substitute candidate for opposition leader María Corina Machado, who won last year’s opposition-organized primary but faces a government ban on holding public office...

Polls show that the unpopular Maduro would be likely be trounced if Venezuelan voters could choose a viable alternative.

So, as of now, Maduro is facing off against 11 other candidates, all of whom are little known and most of whom seem beholden to his regime. And no doubt Maduro will continue to manipulate the election process to make it all but impossible for the opposition party to agree on a single alternate.

All of this could have serious implications for the US. Already more than 7 million Venezuelans have fled the country to escape Maduro's dictatorship. Many millions more are considering leaving.

Political science professor Orlando Viera Blanco said there are millions of people in Venezuela who are hoping to see a political change this year and that they might also decide to leave if it does not happen. 

“The situation in Venezuela continues to be very precarious and miserable, with poverty levels of more than 80%, and of 52% of extreme poverty, and this is fueling the decision to leave,” he said. “We again have a situation where 30% of the population is thinking about abandoning the country if we don’t get rid of Maduro at this point.”

Bottom line, if Maduro cheats his way to another presidential term we're likely to see millions more Venezuelans leaving the country, many of whom will be heading for our southern border.