The youngest people born in Venezuela were born in a democratically broken country, without a balance of power, without freedom of expression. Those who have tried to reverse the situation have been subjected to threats, persecution, deprivation of liberty, exile and even death.
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The hope for a new political air faded with each defeat of those who dared to change things. But in the upcoming elections there is one figure who keeps the hope alive and insists on bringing back democracy in Venezuela: María Corina Machado, a 56-year-old industrial engineer, teacher and mother.
Machado began his political career in 2002, when he created the organization Súmate, which promoted a referendum to revoke the mandate of then-president Hugo Chávez.
In 2011, she arrived as a deputy of the National Assembly for the state of Miranda (she was the most voted candidate in history), where she faced that untouchable leader, who was almost like a god.
“How can you talk about respecting the private sector when you have dedicated yourself to expropriating, insulting, and stealing the property of business owners, merchants, and even small inns that have not even been compensated for their property?” This rebuke to El Comandante was the beginning of a long history of threats and persecution.
“An eagle does not hunt a fly,” exclaimed the then president before continuing with his speech, which would last for more than eight hours.
In the 2012 opposition primaries, Machado came third with 3.7 percent of the vote. At the time, she was considered very radical in her advocacy of a reduced role for the state and the promotion of the free market.
And in March 2014, she lost her seat in the Assembly for having accepted the position of alternate representative of Panama to the OAS. The decision was an interpretation by the president of the corporation, Diosdado Cabello, which was ratified by the judicial authorities.
The Maduro era
The death of Hugo Chavez on March 5, 2013, and his replacement by Nicolas Maduro as interim president marked a turning point in the country’s history. Days after El Comandante’s death, extraordinary elections were held and Maduro won by a narrow margin.
In 2018, he was re-elected in a contest that was questioned by most Western media and organizations, but which the government defended as legitimate.
Under his leadership, the country has experienced numerous economic difficulties, mainly due to US sanctions.
51.9 percent of the population lives in poverty and more than 7.7 million Venezuelans have emigrated, including Machado’s three children.
Unlike in 2012, the opposition candidate is entering the July 28 elections as a figure who promises to unite.
In the opposition primaries in October, Machado won with 92.5 percent of the vote. To achieve this, the former deputy moderated her speech, according to political scientist Carlos Zambrano.
“He understood that, while support from outside is important, on this occasion he needed the support of Venezuelans,” he said.
Today, she is the most overwhelming electoral phenomenon in Venezuela since Hugo Chávez in 1998. Since winning, Machado has filled public squares and mobilized hundreds of thousands of people in the streets where there is a fervor for her name.
Frightened by the strength she has gained, the government has sought at all costs to reduce the fanaticism she provokes. First, she was disqualified from holding public office for 15 years, forcing her to transfer her political capital and candidacy to the diplomat and academic Edmundo González Urrutia (74 years old). And, more recently, both she and her team and supporters have received threats and repression.
Last Thursday, Machado reported that the vehicles she travels in were vandalized and the brakes cut. Also this week, the former deputy announced that her security chief was arrested for alleged gender violence.
“The Maduro campaign is responsible for any damage to our physical integrity. They will not stop us,” he said when he announced the news of his scheme.
“The only way Maduro can stay in power in Venezuela is by force, he does not have the votes,” said the politician in an interview with this newspaper.
Machado also has a mobility restriction.
He cannot leave the country and cannot take domestic flights. All his movements are by land. He also does not have bank accounts, and every establishment where he eats or stays ends up with a tax penalty and closure.
He understood that, although support from outside is important, on this occasion he needed the support of Venezuelans.
Maduro’s government accuses her of being an “oligarch” because she comes from a well-off family, and of “not loving” Venezuela because “it intends to hand over sovereignty to the United States.” “In the beginning, people saw Machado as a radical woman, with ideas that did not fit with the interests of Venezuelans.
Chavismo sold the idea that she was a cultured woman, from the elites, who despised the poor, and she had to bear that image for years,” a neighborhood leader from a popular area of Caracas told EL TIEMPO. Faced with the regime’s onslaught in recent days, she preferred to protect her identity.
Chavismo was always making fun of her and Diosdado Cabello himself, now vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, nicknamed her “María Violencia” every time he mentioned her on his television program Con el mazo daba.
However, Chavismo underestimated her when she began to emerge at the end of 2022 as the new face of the opposition, after the disappointment represented by Juan Guaidó, who proclaimed himself president of Venezuela and was recognized by dozens of countries, but achieved little for the democratic transition.
Citizen power
Years of traveling the country bore fruit: she managed to unite the fragmented opposition, convince the undecided and mobilize Venezuelans to go to the polls in the primaries. Between April and May, an opinion poll to which EL TIEMPO had access showed an openness among the popular sectors to the liberal ideas of the opposition, something unprecedented in Venezuela. Today, Machado is known as the Lady in Gold.
Despite the threats, Machado, along with Edmundo González, has not stopped. In the final stretch, she has encountered more resistance from the pro-government forces. Every move she makes is followed by the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin). According to the NGO Foro Penal, 102 sympathisers or those close to her have been imprisoned this year.
For Julio Borges, a Venezuelan opposition member in exile, his former colleague in the Assembly “has a strength that she has demonstrated in all the challenges she has had to face. Fighting against a power that has all the violence, all the laws, all the repression.
The certainty of fighting for the right ideals gives her the strength, not only her but also the entire Venezuelan people and Edmundo González, to continue forward,” she told EL TIEMPO.
Borges insists that all the actions that the regime has carried out against the opposition leader only show the “desperation” in which they are immersed. “The only thing left is brute force and they resort to this type of thing, which is the arrest of leaders, the arrest of people who are in the campaign or trying to intimidate María Corina,” said the opposition leader.
Most of the polls by well-known and established firms give Edmundo González the win. Delphos presented its latest study on Wednesday together with the Center for Political and Government Studies of the Andrés Bello Catholic University, revealing that, in any of the participation scenarios (high, medium-high or moderate), there is a difference that gives González an advantage over Maduro by between 20 and 34 points. Of course, international pressure is also on Maduro, but that seems to have little to convince the regime.
Jorge Rodríguez, head of Nicolás Maduro’s campaign command, denounced last Friday an alleged plot by international media outlets to help the Venezuelan opposition ignore the results of the July 28 presidential election. Added to this is a broad campaign of disinformation and blocking of web portals.
“I want my son to come back,” “Give me back my family,” “I don’t want to migrate” are the requests Machado receives in every place she visits. People know she is not the candidate, but they are convinced that without the former deputy, the opposition would not have made it to this election, in which it has the lead, but which is not resolved because of doubts about whether Maduro will accept an eventual defeat.
“We were told that it was impossible to get here, that it was impossible to find a candidate, that it was impossible to set up structures to defend the vote without money, that it was impossible to achieve this movement without resources, and look at everything we are doing.
What is happening in Venezuela is unprecedented and is proof that once a people decide to change and organize themselves, in the end, everything that seemed immovable begins to give way.” Machado is determined to be the face that changes the history of Venezuela with the return of democracy and the millions of migrants to the country.
Ana Maria Rodriguez Brazon – Weather correspondent – Caracas
STEPHANY ECHAVARRÍA – INTERNATIONAL EDITOR – BOGOTÁ
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