Maria Corina Machado also told NR that Venezuelans are ‘excited’ by several of Trump’s top personnel picks.
Maria Corina Machado also told NR that Venezuelans are ‘excited’ by several of Trump’s top personnel picks.
V enezuelan pro-democracy leader Maria Corina Machado said that she expects people to take to the streets for her country’s upcoming presidential inauguration next week, when Nicolás Maduro is expected to be sworn in following an election marred by repression and fraud.
“The only thing Maduro has left is repression. Well, we need to break repression,” she told National Review yesterday via a video conferencing platform from an undisclosed location in Venezuela as she hides from Maduro’s government. She said that her movement needs to persuade “those that are today being forced to repress and attack innocent people, unarmed people in the streets, to stop doing that.”
“When that happens — and it will happen — then it’s over for Maduro. So that’s what we are going to do in the next days,” Machado said. “On January 10, our Constitution states that President-elect Edmundo González should be sworn in as a constitutional president of Venezuela. We the people will, in the next days, once again meet in the streets. And what we need and expect is a growing and strong pressure.”
She declined to give details on the specific dates and expected sizes of the demonstrations but said that some of the demonstrations would take place outside of Venezuela.
“I would say that the future of democracy and freedom in the region in Latin America will also be decided in Venezuela, because once Maduro goes, you will see how Cuba and Nicaragua will follow,” Machado added.
Machado, a former member of Venezuela’s national assembly, won the opposition’s presidential primary in 2023. But she was subsequently blocked from running in the general election by the regime, and former diplomat Edmundo González ran in her place.
Maduro claimed victory in last July’s election, after the Venezuelan authorities said that he won with just over half of the vote. But Machado said that data compiled from polling stations across the country indicated that González in fact won, with about 70 percent of the vote. Maduro then cracked down on opposition politicians after the election, arresting many and forcing others into hiding in Venezuela or exile abroad.
The U.S. and its Western allies recognize González, who fled to Spain, as Venezuela’s rightful president-elect, as do a surprising range of countries in the region, including Chile, which is led by Gabriel Boric, a left-wing stalwart.
Previous efforts to oust Maduro, including a failed uprising in 2019, have failed. But Machado views Maduro as exceptionally weak after the July election, citing the fact that the opposition received its largest-ever share of the vote. “Chavismo as a social movement collapsed in places where they had won by landslides in the past,” she said.
Machado will soon find staunch allies in Washington as President-elect Trump prepares to take office, bringing with him to the executive branch appointees who have staked out hawkish positions toward Venezuela’s socialist regime. By all accounts, Trump is focused on defending U.S. interests across the Americas in his second term and has posted statements in recent weeks expressing concern about China’s influence in Latin America.
Machado said that Venezuelans and Latin Americans in general “feel very excited” with Trump’s picks, namechecking Marco Rubio, Chris Landau, Mike Waltz, and Mauricio Claver-Carone, his nominees for secretary of state, deputy secretary of state, national security adviser, and special envoy for Latin America, respectively. “Those that require confirmation by Congress and those that already have been designated, these are people that know the region profoundly, care for the future of democracy and freedom in the region. I think this approach that we need to have, hemispheric security, security of the hemisphere as a whole, it’s important.” She added that “our offices are in permanent contact.”
Machado is asking both the Biden administration and Trump’s incoming one to make clear that the perpetrators of human-rights violations by Maduro’s forces would be held to account. “It is important to convey these messages so that those that used to support him understand that this is not sustainable, and that the new administration will maintain a strong and firm position regarding respect for democracy, human rights,” she said.