“We have turned Venezuela into a global cause.”
Those words could summarize María Corina Machado’s assessment of what the Venezuelan opposition has achieved in the two months since the presidential elections of July 28 in which, according to the opposition, its candidate, Edmundo González, won with a wide advantage. Urrutia.
In this time, President Nicolás Maduro has not managed to get even close governments – such as that of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil or that of Gustavo Petro in Colombia – to accept the victory granted to him by the National Electoral Council of Venezuela.
Brasilia and Bogotá, like other capitals around the world, continue to ask Venezuelan authorities to show the voting records that support Maduro’s victory.
But, also at this time, the opposition candidate had to go into exile in Spain, while Machado herself lives in hiding to avoid being arrested by the Venezuelan security forces who have detained some 2,000 opponents since the elections.
Two months before the elections, journalist Stephen Sackur of the program Hard Talk from the BBC did an interview in English with Machado in which she is optimistic about what the opposition has achieved in recent months.
But the opposition leader also calls for more action from the international community, ensuring that the time to pressure Maduro to achieve a transition in Venezuela is now.
Two months have passed since the presidential elections in Venezuela. Tell me what has happened since then…
Our victory by an overwhelming majority was something that the regime did not expect, as was the fact that in less than 24 hours we were able to collect, digitize and put on a website more than 83% of the official minutes, which really demonstrate our victory.
It was a 70-30 victory, but if it had been a freer election, we would have won by at least 90-10.
Maduro is naked in front of the whole world and his followers.
His decision was to surround himself and entrench himself surrounded by the military high command and, in fact, he unleashed terror. This has reached thousands of Venezuelans who have been detained.
All those who were directly involved in organizing the elections are now in hiding, in prison or in exile.
However, the strength of the organized movement that we were able to awaken and build is there and continues to advance. So Maduro is today totally isolated within the country and increasingly isolated on the international stage.
You talk about Maduro’s isolation, but I want to ask you about your personal situation. I present her as someone who speaks from Venezuela. I think it’s fair to say that she’s hidden right now, right?
That’s right. The regime and Maduro have said that I am a terrorist and that justice is looking for me and many people close to me are in jail, in asylum or in hiding because they want to catch them.
You say that the electronic evidence is clear, that you won the elections. And when I say you, obviously you were the de facto leader of the opposition. You were represented as a presidential candidate by Edmundo González. You say he got 70% of the votes.
But Maduro simply does not accept it. Maduro says electronic data has been hacked. He went to the Supreme Court, the highest in Venezuela, asked them to ratify his victory and they did. So, in constitutional terms, what comes next?
Let’s understand what we are facing. Everyone knows that the Supreme Court is totally controlled by the regime and no democracy has recognized Maduro’s fraud.
Not even its previous allies in the region such as Colombia or Brazil. Even Chile, where President Boric, being on the left, has been clear in saying that Edmundo González is the winner, that he must be recognized and that the world must move forward, supporting a transition to democracy in Venezuela.
So this is out of the question. Maduro and everyone know that they lost.
The point here is that Maduro is willing to come to the negotiating table and I think that will be achieved when the cost of staying in power by force exceeds the cost of getting out of power and we are not there yet.
I wonder if you risk underestimating Maduro’s resilience. In a sense, we have been in this situation before in Venezuela, going back to 2018 in the last elections – when the opposition said they were rigged – and in 2019 you put all your power behind an alternative president, Juan Guaidó, and told him to the world to recognize him as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.
These initiatives and the effort to get people out onto the streets of Venezuela to support them have failed in the past. Why do you think it won’t fail this time?
This is a totally different time. We have never had the strength we have today. We have never had our country united as we are today. The regime has never been called what it is now: not only a dictator, but a criminal who has committed crimes against humanity.
Last week in Geneva, the fact-finding mission and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights declared this with the support of more than sixty countries.
And, on the other hand, tensions within the system, the criminal system, are growing. Maduro has lost total legitimacy. This has never happened before.
But don’t you need support in the streets as part of your demand for change? After the elections there were massive protests but they have generally calmed down. The repression has been reaffirmed, as you have said, many thousands have been arrested, and it seems that the people of Venezuela seem resigned to having more Maduro.
That’s what Maduro wants you to think. And it’s not the truth. We have turned Venezuela into a global cause. We have a quarter of our population living abroad. And Venezuelans are in the streets and they are protesting. Those are Venezuelans too.
Within the country we are evolving towards a new form of protest.
Now we have to move in a different dynamic to protect our people. You will no longer see a large protest with 50,000 people, you will see 1,000 protests with 50 people all coordinated, all decentralized and this is the phase we are entering, it is something that the regime did not expect, and it is the way in which we can put pressure on the critical points to move forward.
Every day that passes, Maduro is weaker; Every day that passes, we are stronger.
A key element that you do not seem to count on are the cracks and division within the Armed Forces and the security apparatus around Nicolás Maduro.
American political scientist John Polga Hecimovich, who studies Venezuela closely, says Maduro has “systematically protected his government against coups, surrounding himself with loyalists, linking his survival to that of other top leaders and a group of high-ranking military officers. As long as that remains the case, he has all the power, the repressive power, on his side.”
Let me tell you something. We would not have been able to collect our electoral records if it were not for the support of the military who were deployed in each of the voting centers in the country. The middle and lower ranks of the military are suffering the same as the rest of the population.
I have heard similar analyzes that said it was impossible to win the election or prove the result. And here we are.
If there is anyone who does not underestimate the regime we face, it is us.
We have been denouncing their criminal nature for years and we understand what they are capable of. However, we are increasing the cost of staying in power and will reach a point where that cost outweighs the cost of getting out of power.
That will be the day when Maduro sits down to negotiate and understands that this is his best option.
In that increase in pressure that you want to see, how great the blow was due to the flight, the escape of Edmundo González from Venezuela to Spain. Of course, it must be said that in the process of leaving the country he signed a document where he seemed to recognize the victory of Nicolás Maduro.
It was a grotesque operation by the regime, in which our elected president was blackmailed and pressured to the point that he thought his life was in danger, even though he was in a European embassy in Caracas, and decided that he was more useful to our free cause, outside of Venezuela, than in a local prison.
I think that in the end this blackmail operation worked against the regime.
Now González is abroad, he was recognized as president-elect by the European Parliament last week and by several countries around the world, and he is accompanying the struggle of Venezuelans abroad. While I do it from within the country.
He says he did so under duress, but signed a paper acknowledging Maduro’s victory. I want to ask you this and it’s a difficult question because we don’t know what’s going to happen to you. If in the coming days, weeks, months you face a similar situation in which the Venezuelan State makes you choose: either sign a document or face jail, or leave the country. What would I do?
As you said, it’s not a fair question because I’m not going to judge anyone who is in those circumstances. When you feel that the lives of your family, your daughter, your grandchildren are at stake, I can’t judge anyone who does that.
In fact, many political prisoners in Venezuela, who have been released, first have to sign horrible things and record videos that are humiliating and they have done it and I am not going to judge them. So let’s take it one day at a time.
It was a big mistake by the regime. The world understands that this is a regime that has no limits or scruples. After they did it, this grotesque operation was discovered and we have received more support as we have seen all this week at the United Nations General Assembly, Venezuela has been a major issue.
Now is when we have to move forward, with pressure from within, growing with each passing day and certainly making the world understand why Venezuela is the most important conflict in the Western Hemisphere.
It has to do with Maduro, who is Putin’s main ally, with Iran, with Syria, with terrorist groups. It is a source of destabilization for the entire region.
And there is migratory pressure that could occur in months, or even a year, in which millions of Venezuelans could leave our country, turning Venezuela – which is already the largest migration crisis in the world – into something unbearable for them.
I want to return to that topic and the desperate conditions that many Venezuelans live in, but I have to ask you one more question about you, your leadership and your decision-making.
You are being investigated by the regime and you must have thought about this, if faced with such a choice: would you stay in Venezuela even if it means losing your freedom, instead of leaving the country?
I have already faced that decision several times and I am still here in Venezuela.
His message seems to be that to achieve change, internal processes in Venezuela must be in tune with international efforts. ¿ Are you satisfied in the last two months with what you have seen?
Let’s start with the United States and the Europeans in regards to the position they have taken on what happened in the elections and what they now say needs to happen in Venezuela.
I would say that I am grateful for what they are doing and I am not satisfied because I think a lot more needs to be done and it needs to be done quickly.
What is at stake in Venezuela goes far beyond our borders. It has to do with the stability of the entire region and Venezuela must be a top priority for immediate action.
Those who are committing crimes against humanity must be held accountable. It would send a direct message to others who support the regime today. And that should not be done only by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and other countries.
Secondly, Edmundo González must be recognized as president-elect immediately because he is, everyone knows that he won the elections by an overwhelming majority and our Constitution is clear: if you get more votes, you are the president-elect and he must be sworn in as Constitutional President of Venezuela on January 10.
But he has not yet been officially recognized as president-elect either in Washington or in European capitals…
No, not yet. That’s what I mean.
If we analyze the direction that the diplomatic effort is taking at this moment, Brazil and Colombia – two governments that are very active in their attempt to defuse the crisis in Venezuela – seem to be selling a message in which their main proposal seems to be to offer Maduro the opportunity to hold elections again. If there were new elections, would you accept them? Would you want your opposition movement to participate in them?
That is not a realistic proposal because what they are saying is why don’t we go to a free election; a free election, and again, if that is the case we will win, 90-10 or even more. And Maduro knows it.
So, that’s not a realistic proposal. Leaving aside the fact that it would be ignoring the popular will and our sovereignty expressed on July 28, in which we participate under the rules of tyranny.
I think these countries want to maintain some type of communication with Maduro and try to propose options to start a negotiation. And that’s fine, but any negotiation must recognize the will of the people.
And how about a gradual transition? There has been talk that you may name some opposition figures who could be part of a new government with some members of the current socialist government, so that there is no drastic change on January 10, the day of the inauguration of the new president. But there would be a gradual transition. Do you see it possible?
No. We have to think about a transition in which we have a unity government, but the will of the people has to be respected. Any formula that is imposed from outside, that does not take into account what the Venezuelan people have decided, is not sustainable. All this is artificial.
Yes, we are facing a criminal system. Yes, it is very dangerous right now. Yes, until now, they haven’t had enough incentive to sit down and negotiate. But things are changing rapidly.
We never had proof of our victory before, we did it this time. Maduro is totally delegitimized and every time he represses our people more and more, they become more and more isolated. So we are going in the right direction.
The point here is that we need more action, and to finish with your previous question, I think the international community needs to do a lot more.
One of the actions that must be implemented is to cut off the illicit income obtained from drug trafficking, gold smuggling and even human trafficking. We must put an end to that, and Europe has many ways to do it; They must get going quickly.
If Maduro takes power on January 10, does he want a much tougher sanctions regime imposed on Venezuela? Donald Trump spoke of exerting maximum pressure on Venezuela during his term. Joe Biden later eased some of the sanctions because he felt that would encourage Maduro to participate in a truly democratic election. We already had the election and you have explained that you believe it was completely rigged and that the opposition won it.
So if Maduro persists in power, does he want sanctions to be massively intensified?
We want the pressure to be exerted now, not on January 10, because we have time to achieve our objective, which is that the will of the people is respected that day and Edmundo González can be constitutionally sworn in in Venezuela.
Now is the time to act and we have a comprehensive and robust strategy and it is working. They told us that it was not possible to reach this point. And here we are stronger than ever. So our strategy is working. We have to move forward…
But Maduro does not give in. If he reaches January 10 and is sworn in again, what will happen in his country?
Well, what is already happening: the number of people leaving, fleeing or crossing our borders is enormous. Just to mention the case of Brazil, it used to be 50 people a day before the elections. Now we are seeing numbers that can reach more than 1,000 people a day.
This is a disaster. This has to stop. This could mean millions of Venezuelans fleeing in the next month, many arriving at the US southern border.
So now is the time to act. We have never had such great popular support and we have never had so much commitment from the international community that understands that solving this problem is a priority for the region and for Western democracies, and never before has Maduro had incentives, as he has now, to sit down and negotiate.
This is a totally different time. We have to keep moving forward. We will prevail.
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