Comptroller disqualifies the pre-candidate María Corina Machado and arouses indignation

A decision that has aroused outrage inside and outside Venezuela. The Comptroller General of Venezuela announced that the opposition María Corina Machado, candidate for the primary elections to be held in October in the South American country, is disqualified from competing for a popular election position for 15 years.

The determination came after the congressman, José Brito, from the pro-government bench that controls the National Assembly, asked the body to clarify Machado’s political situation. The opponent had already received a disqualification in 2015, for one year.

The Comptroller’s response was blunt: “The citizen María Corina Machado Parisca (…) is disqualified from holding any public office for a term of 15 years”.

According to the document, the decision came after a patrimonial investigation that showed that Machado violates “public ethics, administrative morality, the rule of law, peace and sovereignty” of Venezuela. In that sense, ensures that there were “administrative irregularities” when she was a deputy between 2011 and 2014.

Furthermore, the Comptroller’s justification is that errors and omissions were found in Machado’s sworn declarations of assets.

However, the document does not only talk about the patrimonial aspect. According to the text, the opponent supported the “economic blockade” and the sanctions imposed against Venezuela. In the document, Machado appears directly linked to the former opposition deputy, Juan Guaidó, who is accused of having promoted the “blatant dispossession” of the nation’s companies and wealth abroad, with the “complicity of corrupt governments.”

“The blockade requested by María Corina Machado, in collusion with the usurper Juan Guaidó, among others, has generated the kidnapping of 4,000 million dollars retained in the international banking system,” he added.

A “useless” sanction, says Machado

The politician, one of the most popular opposition figures for the primary elections, rejected the decision and downplayed it.

“A useless disqualification that only shows that the regime knows that it is already defeated. Now, we will vote with more force, more rebellion and more desire in the primaries. Here, who enables it is the people of Venezuela. Until the end is until the end ” Machado wrote on Twitter after learning the information.

It is not the first time that he has faced a sanction of this style. In 2015, the Comptroller’s Office itself had disqualified her from politics for allegedly not having included “concepts” of a labor nature in her affidavit of assets. So Ella Machado was unable to run for Parliament and has been banned from leaving Venezuela for the past nine years.

Then, the retaliation only contemplated a one-year sanction and the Comptroller explained that it was extended due to support for the measures taken by the United States when Maduro was re-elected in 2018. Machado, for his part, has denied all the accusations.

Rejection inside and outside of Venezuela

The decision has had great repercussions inside and also outside of Venezuela. The Organization of American States (OAS) condemned the disqualification.

“This decision is arbitrary and contrary to the rule of law. It violates elementary political and civil rights, including those stipulated in Article 23 of the American Convention on Human Rights regarding the right to elect and be elected,” the organization’s General Secretariat ruled in a statement.

The rejection has also come from leaders who have supported President Nicolás Maduro in recent months, such as the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro. In one of his first demonstrations against the Chavismo leadership since he arrived at the Casa de Nariño, Petro wrote on Twitter that “no administrative authority should take away political rights from any citizen.”

On the other hand, many of the opposition leaders have raised their voices against the determination of the Venezuelan Comptroller’s Office. From Spain, Leopoldo López, national coordinator of the Voluntad Popular party and former mayor of the municipality of Chacao, sentenced: “All our support for María Corina in the face of this cowardly maneuver by Maduro. This ratifies the importance of the primaries, whatever the dictatorship says. They already did it. They have said, they are going to disqualify everyone”.

While the opponent Henrique Capriles described the political disqualification as “unconstitutional” and said that it was also an “unfounded and shameful” decision. “We categorically reject this new display of the anti-democratic course of (Nicolás) Maduro and his regime,” he added.

The incident has caused outrage even among Machado’s political rivals. For example, former deputy Delsa Solórzano, one of the four women seeking the coalition candidacy, or former legislator Freddy Superlano, who stated that it was an “attack against the primary.”

Who is Machado?

María Corina Machado has been one of the most prominent figures in the opposition. She was born in Caracas in 1967 and has had an extensive political career that led her to be a member of the National Assembly of Venezuela. In addition, she has championed various civil society movements and political parties in recent years.

In 2014, the 55-year-old Machado founded Vente Venezuela, a political party that has become a powerful opposition force to the government of Nicolás Maduro. In recent years, he has been the target of attacks and accusations by the Executive.

As Reuters shows, he studied industrial engineering and was leading the polls for the 13-candidate primaries called to select a unity candidate to face President Nicolás Maduro in the 2024 elections.

With EFE, AFP and Reuters