Machado, a year of unpredictable leadership in politics

The opposition leader María Corina Machado remembers in an opinion column of the newspaper El País the “milestone” that was It has been just a year since the primaries in which she was chosen as a candidate for the 2024 presidential election. and thanked the Venezuelans who with their votes made “what was believed to be impossible possible.”

«Today marks one year of a civic event that marked a before and after in our fight for freedom and democracy in Venezuela: the primary election on October 22, 2023,” recalls Machado, who directs from clandestinity the opposition efforts to return democracy to Venezuela.

Since she received nearly 2.3 million votes in those primaries that legitimized her as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), the former deputy has meandered through the political scene and, despite the disqualification that prevented her from being the one to fight in the polls with Nicolás Maduro on July 28, his popularity continues to rise.

Machado’s disqualification motivated Edmundo González Urrutia to present himself as an opposition candidate to presidential elections in which the National Electoral Council (CNE) awarded victory to Nicolás Maduro, while the majority opposition bloc.

The Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) insists with the voting records as proof that the winner was González Urrutia, who is currently in exile in Spain.

Machado affirms in his forum that his disqualification “it did nothing more than promote the primaries”.

«A rebellious spirit increasingly took root among citizens, determined to challenge the autocratic system that, meanwhile, was betting on the failure of the electoral process and trying to maintain form. To this end, five days before the vote, their representatives signed the Barbados Agreements together with the delegates of the Unitary Platform. It wouldn’t take long for them to violate all the points agreed upon there,” he emphasizes.

On October 22, 2023 «Nobody knew what the result of that process would be, once the moment of truth has arrived. I confess – he points out – that the best expectations were to exceed one million voters. But the Venezuelan people gave us a new lesson: almost three million people came out to vote!

For the opposition candidate at that time, the Venezuelan people regained confidence “to defeat” Maduro in the presidential elections on July 28 with Edmundo Gonzáez Urrutia as candidate, who, as he explains, obtained “a resounding victory” not recognized by the regime.

This last year «It has been a journey full of obstacles, traps and attacks. Previous experiences led many to affirm that it was an impossible task to achieve,” continues the liberal opposition leader.

According to Machado, the regime promoted demoralization through a vast propaganda apparatus that kept hundreds of journalists, analysts, academics, lobbyists and submissive, supposedly opposition, politicians aligned, inside and outside Venezuela.

But «none of the barriers imposed by the regime managed to prevent people from exercising their right to choose. At the end of the process, people stayed at the voting centers to do with immense emotion what they had not been able to do for 20 years (due to the electronic voting imposed by Chavismo): count each vote in public, “little piece of paper by little piece of paper!” !»

And he concludes that “with incredible effort, humility and transparency, the primary crowned its fundamental objective: defeat the totalitarian lie, recover confidence in the vote and raise hope in change again. Since then, the civic movement that today encompasses and unites all of Venezuela has grown without stopping.

Machado in hiding

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 her The battle against Chavismo – in power since 1999 – will continue “until the end.”

The Venezuelan opposition, with Machado and González Urrutia as representatives, is one of the three finalists for the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize, whose winner will be announced on Thursday, October 24.