The United States warned this Saturday that it could reestablish sanctions on Venezuela after the highest court of the Chavista regime disqualified María Corina Machado from running in this year’s presidential elections.
Following Friday’s ban against the opposition leader, the United States is “currently reviewing” sanctions on Venezuela, the State Department said in a statement, “based on this development and recent political attacks against democratic opposition candidates and the civil society”. “The Venezuelan Supreme Court’s decision on January 26 to disqualify the winner of the democratic opposition primaries, María Corina Machado, is inconsistent with the commitment of Nicolás Maduro’s representatives to hold competitive Venezuelan presidential elections in 2024 “The reinstatement process lacked basic elements, since Machado did not receive a copy of the accusations against her nor was she given the opportunity to respond to them,” the State Department said in a statement.
“This deeply worrying decision goes against the commitments made by Maduro and his representatives under the Barbados electoral roadmap agreement to allow all parties to select their candidates for the presidential elections. “Currently, the United States is reviewing our sanctions policy on Venezuela, based on this fact and the recent political attacks against candidates from the democratic opposition and civil society,” he added.
In , which contemplated “electoral guarantees”, as well as the review of disqualifications.
“The regime decided to end the Barbados agreement. What is not over is our fight to conquer democracy through free and fair elections,” Machado asserted.
In his opinion, with this decision, the Chavista leader Nicolás Maduro and “his criminal system” chose “fraudulent elections”, something that – he insisted – he will not allow.
The Supreme Court of Venezuela maintained Machado’s disqualification in a ruling published on its website.
With its ruling, the highest Venezuelan court closed the way for Machado, a 56-year-old industrial engineer, to register her candidacy for the presidential elections scheduled for the second half of the year.
Machado, like other opposition figures, have been disqualified from holding public office in what the opposition says are political measures by the Comptroller General’s Office, which they describe as an arm of President Nicolás Maduro’s government.
“Citizen María Corina Machado Parisca is disqualified from exercising public functions for a period of 15 years,” the highest court said.
The court explained its ruling using the Comptroller’s allegations: that Machado supported U.S. sanctions and the interim government that the Maduro administration blames for losing money on Venezuela’s foreign assets, including the refiner Citgo, based in in the United States, and the chemical company Monómeros, which operates in Colombia.
The Court also decided other pending cases such as that of Henrique Capriles, former presidential candidate, whose disqualification was also ratified for 15 years.
The United States, which in October temporarily eased sanctions on the Maduro government thanks to an agreement on guarantees for the elections, has conditioned the continuation of that review on Caracas beginning to lift the bans and releasing political prisoners and “detained” Americans. unfairly.”
On December 20, Venezuela released around twenty Venezuelan prisoners and 10 Americans in exchange for the release of a close ally of the Maduro Government, Alex Saab, who was detained in the United States for investigation of bribery. But the issue of disqualifications had not yet been resolved.
As part of the agreement signed in October between the opposition and the ruling party, opposition candidates were allowed to appeal their disqualification before the country’s highest court. Machado went to the Supreme Court in December.
Earlier, three regional leaders of Machado’s presidential campaign were arrested and linked to an alleged conspiracy against the Government, according to data provided by the Attorney General’s Office.
The attorney general, Tarek Saab, said that Guillermo López, Luis Camacaro and Juan Freites, already detained, were part of a group of at least 11 people who allegedly tried to rob a military weapons park last year, and then attack Freddy Bernal. , pro-government governor in the state of Táchira, bordering Colombia.
Amid reports of conspiracies and in which civilians and soldiers have been detained, Maduro said on Thursday that the agreements his Government signed with the opposition in October 2023 are “mortally wounded.”
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