Opposition leader says Maduro making ‘huge mistake’ by barring her candidacy

The pro-democracy activist who won a key opposition primary in Venezuela said Thursday that the socialist regime of President Nicolas Maduro has made “a huge mistake” by attempting to disqualify her from running against him in next year’s critical elections.

The opposition and the Biden administration are pressuring the Maduro government to honor promises to hold a free and fair vote in a country where the collapsed economy has created a massive humanitarian crisis that has destabilized the region. So far, the regime has balked.

“I would say it’s really backfired,” said Maria Corina Machado, the former lawmaker and fierce regime critic. The Maduro regime has denounced her victory in last month’s opposition-organized primary and declared it illegitimate. The regime has a long history of jailing opposition figures and crushing movements toward fair democratic elections.

Ms. Machado said the Maduro regime’s moves against her have drawn international attention and accelerated the momentum of the pro-democracy movement in Venezuela. The U.S. has warned that recent moves to ease sanctions on Venezuela’s critical oil sector can be reversed if Mr. Maduro fails to allow an open vote.

Recent events have exposed the regime’s fear of defeat at the polls, Ms. Machado said in a video briefing organized by the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington.

“It was a huge mistake for the regime … because all these narratives that the regime had put into place, that Maduro was unbeatable in 2024, suddenly people say, ‘Wait, if [the regime] is going this far with something so obscene, it’s because they are truly worried,’” she said.

Her comments mark the latest twist in a decades-old political drama in Venezuela. Mr. Maduro recently made headlines and drew praise from the Biden administration for apparently agreeing to a deal with opposition leaders to clear the path to a fair presidential election next year.

In the days since the Oct. 22 opposition primary attracted a huge turnout and a massive win for Ms. Machado, the government in Caracas has escalated its attacks on the opposition and questioned the legitimacy of the process.

In addition to banning Ms. Machado and two other opposition candidates from running against Mr. Maduro, the regime has announced that the entire primary process is under investigation for money laundering, conspiracy and financial crimes.

Regime officials claim organizers rigged voter turnout numbers of more than 2 million in the primary.

Ms. Machado said Thursday that the numbers were not real and were a viable measure of the frustration of Venezuelans from across the economic and social spectrum. The regime has ruled Venezuela since anti-U.S. populist President Hugo Chavez died in 2013.

Mr. Maduro, a former bus driver and hand-picked successor of Mr. Chavez, has held the presidency since April 2013, when he narrowly won an election that the opposition claimed was fraudulent.

Rebuffing Biden
 
The Biden administration has shifted U.S. policy toward Venezuela in recent months. It hopes soft-touch diplomacy and economic incentives will entice Mr. Maduro to proceed with a vote for a new, democratically elected government.

The White House last month unexpectedly rolled back President Trump’s maximum sanctions pressure on Venezuela. The Trump administration hoped the policy would drive Mr. Maduro from power and end Venezuela’s burgeoning ties to China, Russia and Iran.

Under Mr. Trump, the U.S. joined several North American and European powers in recognizing Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Guaido as the rightful president, but Mr. Guaido failed to unite the opposition or spark much enthusiasm at home and was largely cast aside when President Biden arrived at the White House.

The Biden administration last month eased Trump-era sanctions on Venezuelan oil, gas and gold sectors as an incentive for progress in talks between the Maduro regime and opposition leaders concerning the 2024 vote.

In exchange for easing sanctions, Biden administration officials are reported to have received assurances that Mr. Maduro would release Venezuelan political prisoners detained in recent years.

Critics accuse Mr. Biden of pandering to the Maduro regime, hoping to unlock Venezuelan oil flows and ease global energy supply disruptions brought on by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Republicans have slammed the easing of sanctions. They say the administration should expand domestic exploration and export instead of working with authoritarian leaders.

“America should never beg for oil from socialist dictators or terrorists,” Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican and the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, said in a statement.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican and outspoken critic of Mr. Biden’s 2021 restoration of a ban on oil production in parts of her home state, said the administration is looking “in all the wrong places for energy.”

The administration is “easing up on the worst regimes in the world, giving them the revenues to stay in power and spread terror and corruption, while kneecapping environmentally responsible development in Alaska,” Ms. Murkowski wrote on social media.

Venezuela’s oil market has been under severe sanctions since 2019. Treasury Department officials say the Biden administration’s move allows Caracas to export without restriction for the next six months, conditional on Caracas’ promises.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. and the international community “will closely follow” the Maduro regime’s implementation of an “electoral road map” and that the administration will “take action” if commitments under the road map and for political prisoners are not met.

The Maduro regime appears to be ignoring that threat.

In the wake of Ms. Machado’s primary victory, Venezuela’s supreme court, controlled by the regime, has suspended the results and ratified the regime’s ban on Ms. Machado’s candidacy.

The court has also demanded that opposition figures turn over all candidate registration documents and voter records to the government to aid the regime’s investigation.

“Maduro’s acting like he doesn’t care about the prospect that the U.S. could snap back the sanctions,” Geoff Ramsey, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The Guardian newspaper.

Riding a ‘huge’ turnout

Ms. Machado said Thursday that one undeniable certainty has emerged: Voter turnout for the opposition was “huge” in the primary.

Results released by the commission showed the participation of more than 2.4 million voters. Roughly 93% of them supported Ms. Machado.

Ms. Machado, a supporter of free market policies, has been a longtime critic of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela. She once interrupted Chavez during a speech to the National Assembly. She also has been a polarizing figure for her unwillingness to negotiate with the government and her calls for election boycotts.

She was a fierce critic of Mr. Guaido after he declared himself Venezuela’s “interim president” after Mr. Maduro’s widely questioned 2018 reelection, and she maintained a somewhat low profile for years. That changed this year. Her ability to connect with voters placed her among the leading opposition figures, and the government ban on her candidacy only drew more international attention and propelled her to front-runner status.

“From now on,” she said, “this whole idea of the disqualifying issue was solved by 2.5 million people on Oct. 22.

“We are still in the process to assess what this huge citizen victory means and the impact it will have,” Ms. Machado added. “I think it is an inflection point that will have shock waves in the days to come. The primary had many results, and one that is obvious is the way Venezuelan society was awakened, inspired.

“We see hope growing, and we have a great citizen organization,” she said.