Therefore, the role that Machado will play after the presidential election this Sunday, July 28, will be crucial, according to political analysts. And it will be so in the two basic scenarios that are being considered. Venezuela: if candidate Edmundo González wins, as indicated by opinion polls, or if Nicolás Maduro’s regime refuses to recognize the results.
“The role of María Corina Machado will be to exercise that leadership to try to channel any situation,” they said.
Her role was outlined by candidate González a week ago on social media, when he considered Machado “a key leader in the entire construction of the opposition alliance” that appears to be unbreakable.
“She will be an invaluable collaborator of the new government that seeks to achieve the re-institutionalization of the country and also to ensure that all Venezuelans who have left return and reintegrate into the reconstruction of the country,” said González, speaking briefly about the leader’s performance, if he wins the presidential elections.
Maria Corina Machado in the transition
If González is elected president and recognized by the regime, María Corina Machado would play a key role in the transition process, following the negotiation between the parties, which would begin on January 10, 2025, said lawyer Benigno Alarcón, director of the Center for Political and Government Studies at the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB) in Caracas.
This, although he does not perceive the easy path.
“I think that those in government would make a very serious mistake if they decide to entrench themselves in the institutional spaces that they dominate. What is needed is to try to reach an agreement that facilitates the transition process and avoid a pitched battle on January 10 and the days after,” said Alarcón.
After explaining that the transition begins not only with the change of government but above all of the system, Machado can play a role of “political support” of the new democratic government in the face of the vulnerability of the institutions that are allegedly managed by those close to the regime.
“This is fundamental because the González government would not have the political support pillar, more than the institutional one, and that first pillar will be María Corina Machado. It is very important that this Machado-González alliance remains very strong, because at the end of the day people expect her to have a role in that government and become a pillar that supports political viability,” he explained.
He said that Machado should be among those who carry out the changes. “Without her leadership, I find it very difficult to successfully complete the transition process.”
Transitions are very vulnerable, Alarcón recalled, based on the experiences of Tunisia, a successful process that lasted a decade, and Egypt, where Muslims remained in government for only nine months.
Strong leadership
“Without strong leadership that people trust, it is very difficult to carry out a transition process, and that is why I am looking at Machado, because otherwise it will be viable,” said the professor, who clarified, however, that he does not see the opposition leader as a negotiator at a table with those in power.
“There would be a tense and complicated conversation there, so I think the transitional government will need mediators like Norway and also negotiators who do not personalize the conflict between the government and the opposition.”
Machado would also play a central role in the event that González’s victory is not recognized.
Alarcón said that if the enthusiasm of the opposition voters, which reaffirms the perception of victory, does not coincide with the results announced by the CNE, people will have a hard time going to sleep.
“What is Machado’s role in this scenario? To lead this process so that it has a place. If people see and hear her, they will follow her line and she must act with great responsibility, with great maturity and exercise the leadership she has to try to channel this process.”
Why María Corina Machado’s leadership could be up to the task of meeting the great demands that will come after the presidential election is the central objective of the political analysis.
Machado emerged as an emerging figure who coincided with the need for a change in the population that Alarcón has been studying for months.
“When the primary election was held, we observed the change in people’s attitude when they turned out in large numbers to vote for someone different from the conventional leadership. People decided to vote for the person who has maintained a diametrically opposed discourse and who time has proven right, so people began to see Machado as someone who tells the truth and is a strong woman,” Alarcón reasoned in a political context that began in 2012.
“Now it seems that the entire opposition has aligned itself with Machado, and of course also a sector of Chavismo.”
Great political capital
Pedro Benítez, historian and political analyst, said that in a quarter of a century “there has never been an opportunity for political change in Venezuela like this one,” and he attributes it to a set of factors in which he distinguished “Maduro’s disastrous government” and Machado’s leadership and political capital.
“The main reason is Maduro’s performance, who has done nothing to improve his administration. If you don’t understand the magnitude of the economic and social catastrophe that has befallen Venezuela, you don’t understand what is happening,” he said.
He pointed out that given the desolation of the country’s populations and the resentment that arose there when the “bubble” phenomenon appeared in Caracas, Machado’s success on her tours is no coincidence. “She has managed to connect more emotionally in that abandoned Venezuela, and created a short circuit with the official discourse that the blame for the crisis lies with the sanctions and the alleged blockade. Machado was the one who changed the whole game.”
Benítez, who preferred not to speculate about what will happen after July 29, highlighted the “great political capital” that Machado has gained since she was a member of the National Assembly.
“She will always be the person who stood up in the National Assembly and told Hugo Chavez that expropriating and not paying is stealing; most Venezuelans believed that the economic tragedy that befell us was caused by the war that Chavez started against the private sector and she capitalized on that feeling of the Venezuelan people. She connected with that,” he said.
Benítez did not rule out that an electoral victory for González would allow Machado to create his own political party “with a liberal bent.”
“If everything continues as it is and the opposition has a huge victory, which will be a political victory for María Corina Machado, we will enter a very difficult stage until January 10, but the support of society that she has will be very important for that to happen. From the 29th, the political base in her favor will be strengthened.”
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Source: Interviews with political analysts Benigno Alarcón and Pedro Benítez
