(CNN Spanish) — María Corina Machado aims to remove Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela and considers that she is facing a great opportunity to achieve this. Machado was the winner of the opposition primary elections and will face the candidate of the ruling PSUV and other independent candidates in the 2024 presidential election. In an interview with Conclusions, from CNN en Español, the former deputy said that Sunday’s elections were ” “the beginning of the end and an indispensable and necessary step to be able to go to the definitive defeat of the system.” However, she pointed out that this path has many obstacles and that she cannot travel it alone: ”this is a job and a cause shared by billions of Venezuelans inside and outside the country,” she stressed.
«In this country, after these years of hunger, pain and separation, we are determined to do what needs to be done and that is exactly what is going to happen. “We are going to go to an electoral process, we are going to win each of the commissions, we are going to break down the barriers, I am going to register, I am going to defeat Nicolás Maduro and we will begin the reconstruction of our country,” he assured.
Machado, 56, leader of the Vente Venezuela party (which she founded in 2012), received the most votes in the opposition primary elections held on Sunday, October 22. She obtained 2,253,825 votes (92.35% of the total), with 92.65% of the minutes scrutinized, as reported by the National Primary Commission in its third and last newsletter.
Regarding the electoral process, Machado began by saying that “you have to be very involved in everything that has been this dynamic and the conflict of so many decades in Venezuela to understand the depth, the magnitude of what has happened here. I have said it many times: this is a fight that goes far beyond a conventional election. He then added that “for Venezuelans, this has really become an existential and even spiritual struggle, and that is why you see people go out, hug each other, cry, pray, sing.”
This is the first time in more than a decade that the opposition coalition has organized a primary vote to select a single candidate. His victory also gave a turn to the opposition: he surpassed the pre-candidates of the so-called G-4, the Democratic Action, Primero Justicia, Voluntad Popular and Un Nuevo Tiempo parties, which had the majority of deputies elected in the elections. to the National Assembly for the period 2016-2021.
«It has been a historic feat. The most important thing has been how we Venezuelans came out aware of what we were doing, in a civil, civic event, that the people appropriated and that united us, because a quarter of our country is all over the world and that day we went out in family and we feel united in a common project. “That is extraordinary,” said Machado. And about the number of votes he obtained, he admitted that “this is something truly monumental, they doubled my best expectations.” “For me it is a turning point in the citizen and democratic history of Venezuela,” he summarized.
After the primary and the disclosure of the results, Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced that he will open a criminal investigation against the president and vice president of the National Primary Commission for usurpation of identity, electoral functions and association to commit a crime. Regarding the measure of the Prosecutor’s Office, Machado pointed out that “this is not against Jesús María Casal and Dr. Mildred Camero or the other members of the National Primary Commission. “This goes against millions of Venezuelans who carried out this process impeccably, as elections in Venezuela should be.”
After his victory in the primary, Machado said that he is not going to rest and that his purpose is to “start the reconstruction of our nation.”
Machado: This is a cause shared by millions of Venezuelans 2:21
Disqualification from holding public office
His campaign slogan, “Until the end,” takes on special meaning if one considers a document from the Comptroller General of the Republic that established Machado’s disqualification from holding public office in Venezuela for 15 years for “errors and omissions in his sworn statements.” of heritage.” The sanction would prevent her from registering his candidacy in the National Electoral Council.
Throughout the year, Machado has rejected these accusations on numerous occasions and says that it is all maneuvers of the “regime” and describes the measure against him as “garbage.” “Whoever enables it is the people of Venezuela,” he said in his campaign.
In Conclusions, Machado pointed out that “trying to disqualify me was the worst mistake that the regime could have made, it was reversed because it gave it a dimension of challenge, a challenge that made many more people go to vote on Sunday.” Furthermore, he added that people told her that they enabled her with her vote.
«To talk about disqualification at this point is to try to ignore the monumental political event of Sunday. Now we have to unite an entire country, I am focused on ensuring that a great national agreement reaches the heart and home of every Venezuelan, especially those who are still under some control or intimidation from Chavismo,” she concluded.
Legal experts, such as the non-governmental organization Acceso Público, describe the government measure as illegal and unconstitutional.
For years Machado has faced accusations and sanctions from the authorities. In 2014, as a representative of the National Assembly, she called for a wave of protests known as “the exit” that lasted until June and whose objective was to demand the restitution of the democratic order in Venezuela. Later, Machado briefly accepted a position as Panama’s alternate ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) to denounce to the Permanent Council the deaths of dozens of young people and the human rights violations allegedly committed during those street actions.
In response, the ruling party issued measures to achieve her dismissal as a member of the National Assembly, accusing her of treason and, later, of assassination plans, without showing evidence. Machado has denied such accusations repeatedly and publicly.
A court prohibited him from leaving the country in the middle of that investigation and he has now had that precautionary measure for eight years.
Could the Barbados agreement benefit it?
During October, the opposition and the Maduro Government signed an agreement in Barbados that lifts for six months some economic sanctions on Venezuela imposed by Washington – which would allow the Government to sell oil in the United States again – in exchange for respecting the political rights of their adversaries.
The agreement says that candidates will be able to register “as long as they meet the requirements established to participate in the presidential election.”
Would the conditions of that agreement allow María Corina Machado to participate in the 2024 election? The Government could risk that in six months the US will reinstate oil sanctions, which began in 2019 and accelerated the crisis.
After the signing of the partial Barbados pact, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that he hopes that before the end of November the Maduro Government will define a process and a precise deadline “for accelerated readmission of all the candidates. “The United States plans to take action if the commitments stipulated in the electoral roadmap are not met,” the statement says.
What does María Corina Machado propose?
In this campaign, Machado is committed to promoting the fiscal and monetary stabilization of Venezuela and says that he will seek the privatization of public companies, including oil activity.
Vente Venezuela is a party with a liberal economic doctrine that proposes an option contrary to socialism under the premises of the free market, as well as respect for private property and the rule of law.
With information from Osmary Hernández, Alfredo Meza, Abel Alvarado, Paula Bravo, Melissa Velásquez and Sebastián Jiménez.