María Corina Machado Faces Obstacles in Registering Presidential Candidacy: Latest Updates and Reactions

2024-03-22 01:37:00
María Corina Machado reported problems in registering her presidential candidacy (EFE)

The Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, denounced this Thursday afternoon inconveniences in registering her presidential candidacy for the elections to be held on July 28.

The anti-Chavista wrote in a message on social networks that neither the Un Nuevo Tiempo organization nor the Mesa de la Unidad, the “only two cards” that support her and were enabled by the National Electoral Council to register candidates, have “access to the system.” arranged by the Nicolás Maduro regime, which prevents progress with the formal presentation.

The message was published at 5:00 p.m. local time, that is, “almost 12 hours after the process began” and after it was known that, earlier, former deputy Luis Eduardo Martínez and former mayor Daniel Ceballos, both critics of the majority opposition, had been able to run successfully. At the moment, the disabled groups have not spoken out.

The opposition denounced this new maneuver with which Maduro seeks to leave her out of the July competition (REUTERS)

The obstacles to Machado’s application were not unexpected. Although the Venezuelan ruling party agreed to review the disqualification of politics and guarantee a democratic framework in these elections, the truth is that it has done little to achieve this. In fact, in January he ratified the ban on the winner of last October’s internal opposition elections, to which she responded by assuring that he would also register her name for the ballots.

In any case, not all of Maduro’s actions aimed at preventing his competition in July are focused on Machado herself. The day before it was learned that the Bolivarian security forces arrested two more members of the Vente Venezuela campaign team: Henry Alviárez and Dignora Hernández. With these, there are now eight collaborators arrested in recent months.

According to Attorney General Tarek William Saab, the arrests occurred “in relation to everything that Emill Brandt Ulloa,” María Corina’s campaign manager in Barinas, who was arrested on March 8, has confessed. The official accompanied his speech with an alleged video of the latter’s self-incrimination in a plan that seeks to “destabilize the country” and sentenced at its end: “Now don’t come and say that both were pacifists who were with a flower in the square.” Bolívar marching. Quite the opposite (…) Are they going to say now that they are forced disappearances?

Henry Alviarez and Dignora Hernández were detained by the Maduro dictatorship

However, the video aroused great distrust throughout the opposition, which was quick to point out this maneuver as one more attempt by Maduro to get rid of his main rival. Likewise, the Democratic Unitary Platform pointed out in the last few hours that in Venezuela there is an “open violation of the spirit of harmony that should prevail for the electoral campaign, in accordance with the Barbados Agreement.”

“We demand the immediate release of the detained leaders as well as the cessation of political persecution,” the PUD added in a statement while Vente Venezuela requested proof of Hernández’s life.

“We demand proof of life from Tarek William Saab from our political secretary Dignora Hernández. Where is the? Dignora is hypertensive, she has severe allergic processes and uses special medications,” they wrote.

(With information from EFE)

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