“The one who leaves Venezuela is Nicolás Maduro”

Opposition leader María Corina Machado ruled out this Tuesday that she had any intention of leaving Venezuela and reiterated that President Nicolás Maduro will accept a negotiation to leave power and complete a transition when “the cost of staying is higher” than that of leaving.

“The one who is leaving Venezuela is Nicolás Maduro, here we continue to face the Venezuelans, close despite these circumstances,” she said when asked if she has considered leaving Venezuela as several government officials have said, including Maduro.

Machado assured that the cost of repression increases by letting those who commit the crimes know “that they will be responsible.”

“How the cost of permanence increases, with a set of actions that take place inside and outside the country. What is this regime supported by today? Two repressive arms, the armed and the judicial, and a third pillar, the flows of illegal financing that come from drug trafficking, mineral smuggling, smuggling of other products, human beings. ”, he maintained from clandestinity in an online conversation with journalists.

Machado, winner of the opposition presidential primary, but disqualified from holding public office, stated that the government seeks to “demoralize” citizens and stressed that every day “it is more isolated.”

“I see him totally uncontrolled. The question we have to ask ourselves is what more anyone can do to raise that cost so that Maduro sees the imperative need to accept the terms of a negotiation before January 10,” he highlighted.

Machado insists on the need to pressure the government to recognize the former presidential candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, currently in “forced” exile, as president-elect.

The opposition, which published copies of the minutes kept by its table witnesses, considers him the winner of the July 28 contest with 67% of the votes.

Two months after the presidential election, the National Electoral Council (CNE), which proclaimed Maduro the winner for a third term, has not published the disaggregated results despite demands from the international community that has not recognized it.

Last week, the US Undersecretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Brian Nichols, said that the US is considering “using the tools” necessary to pressure Maduro to recognize defeat and guarantee respect for the human rights of the Venezuelan people.

The opposition leader insisted that what is appropriate is the swearing-in of González Urrutia on January 10, in Venezuela, and reiterated that “there is no way” for Maduro to be “stabilized” either financially or economically.

At least thirty countries and the European Union have expressed “serious concern” about the “generalized repression” as well as the human rights violations that have been reported in Venezuela after the elections.

Furthermore, they have insisted that it is time for Venezuelan political leaders to “initiate constructive and inclusive discussions about a transition with guarantees” to resolve the country’s political stagnation.

Following the July 28 presidential election, at least 27 people died and more than 2,400 were arrested amid protests against the results.

New stage

Machado defended the strategy of protests in “swarms” (small concentrations in neighborhood assemblies), which began to be implemented last Saturday when he called on citizens to demonstrate peacefully and specified that “conventional” actions cannot take place.

“They are coordinated, this is creating, retraining and adapting the pressure and citizen presence in a new, highly challenging circumstance, but one that with intelligence and resilience we can overcome,” he said.

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