After the Government of Venezuela disqualified for 15 years to hold public office Maria Corina Machadoone of the favorite pre-candidates for the presidential elections scheduled for 2024, Nicaraguan opponents affirm that the dictator Nicolás Maduro is committed to holding elections “tailored” to his counterpart Daniel Ortega.
Former Nicaraguan ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) Arturo McFields pointed out that by disqualifying Machado, the Venezuelan president is betting on “Ortega-style elections in Nicaragua.”
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For her part, the president of the outlawed Citizens for Freedom Party (CxL), Kitty Montereysaid, through his Twitter account, that “the illegal disabling of @MariaCorinaYAby the socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro, only shows how much they fear the electoral process.
The opposition member, exiled in Costa Rica, added that “this outrage must be condemned and denounced before the world, because it is another step on a path that we have already traveled in Nicaragua.”
For Héctor Mairena, a member of the Political Council of the Blue and White National Unity (Unab), this action against Machado should motivate the Venezuelan opposition to “unify to face Maduro.”
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“To the extent that the oppositions are more united, the adversary weakens,” stressed the lawyer and also a member of the Renewing Democratic Union (Unamos).
Others to react to the disqualification of the presidential candidate was the MEP Jose Ramon Bauzawho said that from the European Parliament «We monitor and will denounce any threat against the candidates for the primaries to defend freedom in Venezuela.”
Juan Guaidó: “Maduro assumes the Nicaraguan path”
According to opponent Juan Guaidó, Maduro is assuming the Nicaraguan path “to continue clinging to power, persecuting and disabling the democratic alternative.”
“We reject the measure of the dictatorship against María Corina Machado. The world cannot look the other way, it is necessary to move forward with determination so that Venezuela recovers its democracy (…) It is time for more solidarity and unity of purpose to recover freedom,” added the former interim president of Venezuela.
The Venezuelan Comptroller’s Office reported that the disqualification of Machado, who began a tour in Venezuela for the primaries organized by the opposition to choose a presidential candidate, is based on “administrative irregularities” when she was a deputy in 2011-2014.
Machado is also accused of having participated in “a corruption plot”, headed by Guaidó, recognized between January 2019 and January 2023 as president in charge of Venezuela by fifty governments that ignored the re-election of President Nicolás Maduro. , in 2018, by calling those elections “fraudulent.”
