María Corina Machado, a year of leadership in Venezuela

Maria Corina Machado celebrates his first year as leader of the opposition in Venezuela, where he has led actions in the face of a multitude of obstacles and attacks, most knocked down with cunning and with strategies that few saw coming, especially for the political spirit demonstrated before reaching the top.

Since the primaries of October 22, 2023 she received nearly 2.3 million votes that legitimized her as a presidential candidate of the Democratic Unitary Platform, the former deputy has meandered through the political scene – starting with the disqualification that prevented her from competing in the July 28 elections – while her popularity continues to rise.

But nothing is free. Machado faces a State that, with the force of all its institutions -controlled by officials sympathetic to Chavismo-, has acted against him, but It has been her agility to draw new scenarios that has kept her afloat, despite criticism who seek to undermine his leadership.

Below are the high points of her year as captain of anti-Chavismo:

The succession

Machado underwent a judicial process with the aim of allowed him to compete in the presidential electionss, which ended with the expected ratification of his impediment until 2036, the longest veto imposed on a politician in the country.

With this panorama, far from dynamiting the electoral route, as many thought she would do, the liberal raised her hand to the philosopher Corina Yoris to register her name in the race for the Presidency, but, given the impossibility of completing this candidacy, she ended up supporting the then unknown diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia.

The accompaniment

Once the majority opposition registered a presidential candidate – something that had not happened since 2013 -, Machado became its main supporter, leading events throughout the country, in which she accumulated crowds that no other PUD leader could draw, let alone the eight candidates who signed up to challenge Nicolás Maduro for the head of state.

Was the first time in the political history of Venezuela that a woman led the main measurements of popular support, while, also in an unprecedented way, the same leader – who spent years calling for abstention and not participating in elections – went around each town asking for the vote for the change that González Urrutia represented, whose victory she claimed, against the official result, which granted the disputed victory to Maduro.

The minutes

Given her distrust in the National Electoral Council (CNE) – controlled by rectors sympathetic to Chavismo – and using her knowledge of the voting system, the opponent surprised, once again, the regime and the entire world when announced that he had the evidence that supported the victory of González Urrutia, contrary to the announced re-election of Maduro.

Thanks to work that he kept secret, in which tens of thousands of volunteers participated, Machado collected 83.5% of the voting records, labeled as false by the government, according to which The PUD obtained more than twice as many votes as the Chavista bloc, which gave value to the fraud complaint, while the CNE continues without publishing evidence of the official result.

The consecration

The former deputy’s claim, or what she called her “fight of good against evil”, has not ceased, but since shortly after the votes has kept his whereabouts hidden in the face of the threats that arise almost daily from Chavismo, that accuses her of leading alleged terrorist plans, and in view of the wave of arrests against opposition leaders.

Even in hiding, Machado has received signs of support from all over the world or recognitions such as the Václav Havel Prize for Human Rights from the Council of Europe for being a defender of democracy, distinctions that she appreciates with messages in which she reiterates that His battle against Chavismo will continue “until the end.”