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BBC News World
She is one of the most popular leaders among the Venezuelan opposition.
The Comptroller General of Venezuela (CGR) reported that it disqualified the former opposition deputy Maria Corina Machado to run for popularly elected positions for a period of 15 years.
Machado appears in the polls as one of the favorites to win the primary elections with which the Venezuelan opposition will choose its presidential candidate for the 2024 elections.
The information about the disqualification was known this Friday through a letter that the CGR sent to deputy José Brito, a member of the National Assembly controlled by the ruling party.
The legislator had consulted the CGR this week about the status of a disqualification imposed on Machado in 2015 and revealed, after receiving the response from that body, that the sanction had been extended for a period of 15 years.
This is because Machado allegedly backed US sanctions against the government of Nicolás Maduro and supported the interim presidency of former congressman Juan Guaidó.
In principle, the ban on participating in the elections imposed in 2015 by the CGR was 12 months, because she had not included in her asset statement some bonuses she received as a deputy, something she denies.
55-year-old on politics weighs for nine years a ban on leaving the country.
electoral obstacles
In a message posted on his Twitter account, Machado flatly rejected the announcement and said that the disqualification was “useless.”
“[La inhabilitación] it only shows that the regime knows that it is already defeated. Now we will vote with more force, more rebellion and more desire in the primaries. Here who empowers is the people of Venezuela. All the way is all the way,” she wrote.
In recent months, Machado has led the opinion polls ahead of the primary elections scheduled for October 22 and in which 13 other candidates will compete, including former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski, who was also disqualified from holding office in 2017. elected posts for a term of 15 years.
Capriles expressed his solidarity with Machado, describing the CGR measure as “unconstitutional, unfounded and shameful.”
“We categorically reject this new example of the anti-democratic course of Maduro and his regime. They will not be able to take away the hope of Venezuelans for a change to have a better country! ”, He wrote on his Twitter account.
The disqualifications are one of the issues that the opposition wants to discuss with the government at the negotiating table that was launched in Mexicobut since last November it has been stagnant.
In this scenario, the Maduro government seeks to get rid of international sanctions against it and the opposition tries to guarantee conditions for free and fair elections in Venezuela.
The disqualifications do not prevent opponents from participating in the primaries, but they could prevent their registration as candidates before the National Electoral Council.
Upon learning of the announcement, both independent analysts and opposition leaders compared the decision with the measures taken by the authorities in Nicaragua that, in practice, prevented opposition leaders from challenging President Daniel Ortega for the presidency.
For example, the former deputy and former president of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó rejected the sanction against Machado and stated that “Maduro assumes the path of Nicaragua”, in a message also published on his Twitter account.
“This is how the dictator intends to continue clinging to power, persecuting and disabling the democratic alternative,” he added.
For his part, lawyer José Ignacio Hernández, an expert in Administrative and Constitutional Law, recalled that there are legal precedents against this type of sanction.
“The illegitimate decision of the Comptroller General of the Republic on the ‘disqualification’ of María Corina Machado is unconstitutional and violates human rights. The Inter-American Court has established this in two judgments, cases [del opositor venezolano] Leopoldo Lopez and [del presidente colombiano] Gustavo Petro,” he said in a Twitter message.
That position was shared by Petro himself.
“No administrative authority should take away political rights from any citizen,” the Colombian president wrote when asked about the issue on Twitter.
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See original article on BBC