“We have overcome each of the obstacles that have been put in our way”

Former Colombian President Iván Duque launched his podcast «Three answers»in which The first guest was Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado to address the situation in the country in the run-up to the presidential elections and the obstacles that the Maduro administration has imposed to prevent his candidacy.

Maria Corina pointed out that Maduro (and his cabinet) did not imagine that the Venezuelan population would give him the support he received in the opposition primaries.

“The regime did not expect a reaction of that magnitude and began to act, increasingly, in a more overwhelming, illegal, arbitrary, repressive, to the point of preventing my participation, because she knows that she would be defeated in a landslide,” she commented during her conversation with Duque.

Likewise, the leader of Vente Venezuela also highlighted the obstacles that the Maduro administration has placed on the opposition coalition since October, they have managed to overcome them.

Maria Corina to Edmundo Gonzalez

“We have overcome each of the obstacles that have been put in our way and today we have a candidate (Edmundo Gonzalez) who is an honest man, an honorable man. It is not well known in Venezuela, but we have 90 days for the country to understand“, he added.

Duque questioned whether there are currently conditions in the country for presidential elections to be held in Venezuela in which the population feels confident to participate, to which Machado stressed that efforts are being made to ensure this.

“We are organizing. We are not acting as if this is a level playing field with an independent referee. Here we know that the playing field is like that, that the referee is part of the other team, that they use persecution and violence«.

He insisted that the government benefits from a negotiated political transition because, in his opinion, Venezuelans will not tolerate any more abuses.

«The most convenient scenario for the regime and Maduro is a negotiated transition. Believing that they can stay by force, continue to snatch away the right to choose and impose another result by force, I don’t think the country will tolerate it.«.