2023-10-24 07:06:48
María Corina Machado won the primary elections held on Sunday by Venezuela’s opposition with 93% of the votes. She defeated nine rivals. She is ready to face President Nicolás Maduro in the presidential elections scheduled for the second half of 2024. But perhaps the expected duel will never happen. The former deputy is weighed by a measure that Chavismo has resorted to throughout these years to get its most dangerous electoral rivals out of the way: political disqualification.
In the early hours of this Tuesday, following the first results were known, Machado, 56, challenged Maduro and said that he would remove him from power.
LOOK: Results of Primary Elections 2023 in Venezuela LIVE: María Corina Machado sweeps to be Maduro’s rival
“In 2024 we are going to win in that presidential election, we are going to collect and we are going to evict Nicolás Maduro and his regime and we are going to begin the reconstruction of our nation,” he asserted.
María Corina Machado smiles as she celebrates with allies and followers in the early hours of this Monday the results of the primary elections in Venezuela. (EFE/Miguel Gutiérrez).
The former deputy announced that she will build “a citizen organization like there has never been in history to make every vote count.”
“Venezuela has broken down all barriers and this has been a citizen avalanche that has united our country,” he said regarding the primaries.
The primary elections were held days following the opposition, represented by the Democratic Unitary Platform, and Chavismo delegates signed the Barbados Agreement, “on the promotion of political rights and electoral guarantees for all” in view of the 2024 presidential elections. who will be accompanied by international observers. These dialogues seek to establish a roadmap for this.
As a consequence of the agreement, the United States lifted some of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela in terms of oil, gas and gold for six months. In addition, the Chavista regime released five political prisoners.
But what was signed in Barbados does not guarantee the electoral participation of all opponents of Maduro.
María Corina Machado casts her vote at a polling station in Caracas during the Venezuelan opposition primary elections. (Photo by Federico Parra/AFP).
The disqualification of María Corina Machado
María Corina Machado, an industrial engineer by profession and specialized in Finance, entered politics in 2002, when she created Súmate, an organization that promoted a referendum to revoke the mandate of then-president Hugo Chávez.
Subsequently, in the 2010 legislative elections, Machado was the representative with the most votes.
María Corina Machado smiles following voting during the parliamentary elections on September 26, 2010. (Photo by MIGUEL GUTIERREZ/AFP).
In 2014, she was dismissed from the National Assembly for attending an OAS meeting as Panama’s “alternate ambassador” where she denounced human rights violations during opposition protests that same year that called for Maduro’s resignation. At least 40 people died as a result of police and military repression.
María Corina Machado and her supporters flee from tear gas during a protest in Caracas on April 1, 2014. (Photo by AFP).
After her dismissal, in 2015 the Comptroller’s Office imposed a sanction on her that disqualified her from holding public office for a year.
But in July of this year, when he was already competing for the opposition’s presidential nomination, the Comptroller’s Office reported that the disqualification imposed on Machado will extend until 2030, so he will not be able to hold elected positions unless the sanction is lifted.
“I have never received a single notification,” said Machado. He has not appealed the sanction before any instance. “If there is no crime, there is no procedure and there is no decision, what am I going to appeal?” He asked himself.
In addition, Machado has a pending judicial process for the alleged crime of conspiracy, which has not been initiated for years.
This is the context in which she swept the opposition primaries.
What does the Barbados Agreement say regarding electoral participation? The signed document does not resolve the issue of political disqualifications, as it states that “authorization will be promoted to all presidential candidates and political parties, as long as they meet the requirements established to participate in the presidential election consistent with the procedures in Venezuelan law. ”.
The Barbados Agreement was signed by the president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, the Chavista Jorge Rodríguez, and by the former opposition mayor Gerardo Blyde.
The president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Jorge Rodríguez (right), with the opponent Gerardo Blyde during a day of dialogues in Barbados. (EFE).
Regarding the agreement, the Democratic Unitary Platform said that it should constitute a roadmap for the political disqualifications to be lifted.
But Chavista Jorge Rodríguez has been blunt regarding the issue and has said that the agreement does not contemplate the lifting of the disqualifications imposed on opposition politicians.
“If you received an administrative disqualification from the body to which you correspond (…) then you cannot be a candidate either,” Rodríguez emphasized.
In this issue there is a third actor that might be key: the United States. The Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, issued a statement last week in which he indicated that his country hopes that before the end of November, Venezuela will define a schedule and a specific process for the qualification of the candidates.
“Everyone who wants to run in the presidential election should have the opportunity to do so, and they have the right to equal electoral conditions, freedom of movement, and guarantees for their physical safety,” Blinken’s statement said.
The document stressed that “failure to comply with the terms of this agreement will lead the United States to reverse the measures we have adopted.”
In an interview with the EFE agency, Juan González, President Joe Biden’s main advisor for Latin America, said last Thursday that sanctions on disqualified politicians, including María Corina Machado, should be lifted.
The Venezuelan presidential candidate of the opposition Vente Venezuela party, María Corina Machado, speaks during a rally in San Juan de los Morros, Guárico state, on July 21, 2023. (Photo by Federico PARRA/AFP).
What may come
“This fight is until the end!” Machado has stated in his speeches to his followers. She is confident that the sanction can be reversed and she will be able to participate in next year’s elections.
But on the Chavismo side they completely rule out that possibility. “Don’t dress up because you don’t want to!” said Diosdado Cabello, the regime’s strong man.
What can happen now? Quoted by BBC MundoLuis Vicente León, one of the most influential pollsters and political analysts in Venezuela, proposes three scenarios:
“One is that Machado demands that the people defend her in the streets and that this generates new conflict and electoral delegitimization; another is that Machado feels he has the right to choose who will be the unitary candidate, with the danger that the others will refuse and another fracture will be generated; and a third scenario is that the opposition has to elect a substitute candidate once more, which takes us to the initial point, but with a strengthened Machado,” León said.
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