Maduro’s regime has never been this weak, a confident Maria Corina Machado tells Congress
The Nicolás Maduro regime has arrested at least three of María Corina Machado’s closest collaborators and has ruled that she will not be able to compete in this year’s presidential elections, but the opposition leader says she feels great optimism about Venezuela’s immediate future.
The regime is extremely weak at this moment, suffering from very low popularity and counting with very few tools to face the rebirth of hope in Venezuela, Machado said on Wednesday at a roundtable organized by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs subcommittee.
“We do have a real opportunity for a peaceful transition in Venezuela through presidential elections that according to the Constitution should take place this year. The regime is in its weakest position ever due to the current correlation of forces. Even though the shout, they only resources they have is the use of violence and their efforts to generate terror. We, within the opposition forces, are stronger today than ever,” she said.
The latest polls published in Venezuela suggest that Machado is correct. The opposition would defeat Maduro in a possible presidential election by a ratio of 72% to 8%, according to an opinion poll published this week by the firm Meganalisis.
Finding itself outmatched in the electoral field is the reason why the regime ended up turning its back on the commitments it made in Barbados in favor of holding free and fair elections this year under the supervision of international observers, Machado said.
Despite this, Machado told a small group of US representatives that 2024 will be a defining year for Venezuelans.
“The time to act is now. We have a huge opportunity, first because the regime is breaking down because they have completely lost their social support, and second because they are suffering internal clashes between the different criminal groups they consist of, because they are fighting over the few sources of income that are left after having pillaged the whole country,” she said.
A third element that is dragging the country towards a democratic transition is enormous international pressure, which Machado described as truly global.
Maduro, meanwhile, has been showing few signs of being willing to reverse his decision not to run against Machado in a presidential election, and his regime is not moving forward in the implementation of a electoral system reform, despite agreeing to do so in Barbados.
The United States has said that the Venezuelan government has until April to honor its commitments, otherwise Washington will reimpose the previously lifted sanctions on Venezuelan oil sales.
During the round table, Machado said she feels confident the Biden administration and the bulk of the international community will continue to support her, dismissing fears that in the face of the regime’s refusal to allow her to run in an election she would be tossed aside in favor of another opposition candidate the regime would find more agreeable.
“I trust that I will continue to have the support of the international community, because in reality this is not about me. This is about the choice of the three million Venezuelans who voted for me in the primaries, in what was a historic process,” she said. “So this is not about me, but about the right of the Venezuelan people to choose the leader and the candidate they want to run against Maduro.”
Despite Machado’s optimism, her followers in Venezuela continue to be the target of a wave of repression launched by the regime. As of now, at least three members of her party, Vente Venezuela, are missing and are presumably under the regime’s custody.
“What we have here is a state that has decided to crush its opponent, crush it. That means taking three Venezuelans, who were detained or kidnapped as of today,” Machado’s campaign manager, Magalli Meda, said in a video published on Thursday on her X account.
Describing the detentions of the three Vente Venezuela leaders as kidnappings, Meda said that these actions demonstrate the Maduro government’s fear to compete against Machado.
