The opposition leader of Venezuela María Corina Machado asked this Sunday the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) not to “endorse” “a regime that is on the way out”, in reference to the Government of President Nicolás Maduro, whom, according to the former deputy, the people “defeated widely” in the July 28 elections.
“You know well that the first obedience of a soldier’s life is to respect popular sovereignty, and you know the truth of what happened on July 28, because you were there and saw a united, peaceful and hopeful people in the streets” , said.
In an audio published on social networks addressed to the military, the opposition indicated that, after “almost three months” of the presidential elections, “neither the CNE (National Electoral Council), nor the TSJ (Supreme Court of Justice) nor Maduro have been able to show a single piece of evidence that they won the election, because they lost it.
“Military citizen, Venezuela needs you, be the protagonist of the history that the new republic is creating, do not endorse a regime that is on the way out, listen to your conscience (…). The change has already started and is unstoppable,” said Machado, who defends the “victory” that – he claims – the opponent Edmundo González Urrutia obtained, despite the fact that the CNE proclaimed Maduro the winner.
In the audio, the anti-Chavista leader stated that the head of state “is already past” and that there have been “more than 25 years of revolutionary promises that never came true”, after which today income “has fallen to an unsustainable minimum “.
“What sense does it make to give up your career, your reputation, to support a Government that no longer has a future? (…) How many family members and colleagues have had to leave the country? How many times have people who love you claimed you? for continuing to support a tyrant who has done so much damage to us all? We know that every day they try to scare you by telling you that when we Democrats come to power we will go against the National Armed Forces and against you, that you have no future with us. It’s false,” he said.
In that sense, he pointed out that the “return to democracy not only implies the validity of justice and freedom”, but also the “reinstitutionalization and professionalization” of the FANB and the police agencies, which “must be” – he added – “well trained, well equipped and well paid so that they can do their job well.”
In August, after the validation of its controversial victory by the TSJ, the FANB ratified its “absolute loyalty and subordination” to Maduro, despite the fact that the Constitution indicates that the Armed Forces are an institution “without political militancy” that is “at the mercy of exclusive service of the nation and in no case that of any person or political party.
