CARACAS.- The opposition candidate Maria Corina Machado He stated that complying with the Barbados agreement means that he will be able to register his candidacy in this year’s presidential elections and “face (Nicolás) Maduro” in competitive elections.
In his opinion, that is the option that Maduro has. “To comply with the Barbados agreement is to understand that I am going to register and that I am going to face Maduro in competitive elections”Machado said in an interview with elpitazo.net, reviewed a press release from Vente Venezuela.
He added that the other option that Maduro has “is to go the hard way, with the consequences that this has for us, the country and for the system itself,” which in his opinion is not sustainable.
Sustainable trading
Regarding the negotiation between the opposition and the regime, María Corina maintained that the important thing is that there is trust between both parties.
“What I have to offer is my word, because in the end, in a negotiation of this complexity, the fundamental thing is that there is trust between all the parties, and those gentlemen who are part of the regime know that what I have is my word” , he expressed.
The opposition leader stressed that A “sustainable negotiation” in Venezuela is one that is “endorsed by the country.” He urged Maduro to “be very clear” that “a reasonable negotiation for them must be accepted by the country” and “for the country to accept it, whoever represents Venezuelans in that negotiation must be someone the country trusts,” he explained.
Negotiated transition
Machado stated that currently the Maduro regime knows that it would be defeated in a “moderately competitive” election. And that is why he “does not accept the possibility of an electoral defeat and a transition.”
“But to give them an electoral defeat, we have to give them a political defeat, and that is when the regime assumes that it is impossible to stop the advance of this social movement, that this system is unsustainable and that for its own good a negotiated transition must be facilitated. When that happens, political defeat will have occurred and the conditions will have existed to move towards a competitive electoral process,” he explained.
Machado recalled the result of the primaries on October 22, 2023 and the subsequent “failure” of the regime in the consultative referendum for Essequibo last December. “It is the end of a political and social stage,” he added.
María Corina explained that there are currently breaks in sectors of the PSUV and that the ruling party has even approached them to ask them what the guarantees would be in an eventual transition.
“They approach us and ask how they look after a transition, what are the terms and guarantees for a transition (…) It is complex because they have destroyed all the institutions and subjected the country to total devastation, but also because they have committed very severe crimes” , he stressed.
Machado stressed that he is working to enforce the popular mandate he received in the primaries. “I am doing my job of the mandate that they gave me on October 22: advance along an electoral route and consolidate the most important citizen force that has ever existed, and aligning all the factors. What are we asking for? Elections, elections, elections. And while we organize.”
In that sense, he ruled that “the ball is in the regime’s court.”
Closing of political cycle
The opposition candidate assured that in Venezuela “there was a closing of a political cycle” in reference to the electoral failures of Chavismo registered in recent years. He said a transition “is a stage to a common, tangible vision.” “How are we going to get there? Nobody knows. But I have certainties, and one is my trust in Venezuelan society.”
Machado was elected as the “unitary” candidate of the opposition coalition Democratic Unitary Platform, which brings together the most important opposition parties in the country. Despite having triumphed in those primaries with 92% of the votes and in elections in which 2.5 million Venezuelans participated, the Maduro regime prevents him from registering for the presidential elections, scheduled for the second half of this year, dictating a disqualification from holding public office for 15 years. This measure is considered arbitrary and outside the legal framework by the opposition and international actors.
After the signing of the Barbados Accords, in October 2023, Maduro committed to guaranteeing the conditions for the presidential elections to be free and transparent elections. However, last January, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), an institution that responds to the interests of the regime, endorsed the disqualification of Machado, whose candidacy is now in limbo, as is the dialogue with the opposition.
Source: EDITORIAL / Press Release / Vente Venezuela
