Juan Guaidó offered to Maria Corina Machado from his exile in the United States his “support and determination to make the dream of an entire country possible” after his overwhelming victory in the primaries of the opposition to Chavismo was made official with more than 93% of the votes on last December 23. October.
The Venezuelan opponent, who exercised his right to vote in Doral, a city near Miami that is home to a large Venezuelan community, then interpreted that it was “the time to selflessly exercise union and unity from the leadership” with the aim of defeating at the polls Nicolas Maduroopen in principle to holding presidential elections in the second half of 2024 under the Barbados Agreement with the Unitary Platform.
For the former president of the National Assembly, self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela in January 2019, the country had expressed itself clearly: “Every struggle, every sacrifice, has not been in vain, because today we wake up with a new great opportunity forged by millions of recover democracy.
“To all the candidates and parties, my sincere gratitude, today we are one team,” concluded the opposition leader, who witnessed days before the vote the withdrawal of the candidacies of Freddy Superlanohis replacement at the head of Voluntad Popular, the movement founded by Leopoldo Lopez in 2009, and by Henrique Capriles. The latter, visible head of Primero Justicia, also congratulated María Corina Machado, although unlike Superlano he did not ask for the vote for the conservative leader.
However, in the same way as Superlano and Capriles, María Corina Machado is also disqualified by Chavismo. The Supreme Court of Justice, in fact, responded to her landslide victory in the primaries by nullifying her result.
However, each time voices from around Juan Guaidó have closed ranks with who has become the main alternative to Maduro. The last to do so was the press officer of the former president of the National Assembly, Edward Rodriguez. The journalist writes in the digital Infobae that “we cannot leave aside the greatest achievement of the Venezuelan opposition this year 2023, which was the process and results of the primary election where María Corina Machado was elected as a unitary presidential candidate. The victory was resounding despite the fact that the country’s serious pollsters had already predicted it.
Rodríguez highlights that the candidate herself “knows that she represents change, hope and unity, she also knows that it is her most precious asset and that she must preserve it very well because that unity that is not perfect and that is full of interests and even spies of the regime is the one that exists, since there is no other that can be put together at this moment in the game and it cannot be created if it is an extraterrestrial. This is why she demands “respect, tolerance and fair play” from the opposition bloc, aware that some sectors “play to not allow her.”
«Others say that “The Lady” [en alusión a María Corina Machado] He doesn’t listen, he is very radical, he plays his own game, and I, being an advocate for God and the devil, ask: And what else is he going to do if everyone has had their turn at bat? I believe and I give the approval of the doubt that María Corina will do what she has to do and will give up what she has to give at the precise moment and if she does not do it, then the opposition that gave her control will change direction,” concludes the journalist, who predicts three future scenarios: «One could be Nicaragua. That is, the regime takes everything and everyone to stay in power. The other is that the pressure from the United States and the international community has an effect. And the third is that Maduro goes like a lamb to the election.
Guaidó’s press chief acknowledges that the latter “is the least likely, so without a doubt and without hesitation support for the unitary candidate must be frontal.”
