Venezuela: Opposition leader María Corina Machado warned that Chavismo could arrest her “unjustifiably”

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, main rival of President Nicolás Maduro but politically disqualified, reported yesterday that her life is in danger being detained “unjustifiably”at a time when the official campaign against dissent intensifies and Parliament is discussing an “anti-fascism” law that targets opponents.

Machado’s warning is contained in the a letter he sent to 18 countries and the European Union (EU) As a bloc, those who attended a conference on Venezuela in Bogota on April 25 focused on sanctions relief in exchange for electoral terms.

“My teams across the country are at risk imminent forced disappearances and I myself could be subject to unjustified detention,” he warned in the text published on his social networks.

“I continue to be prevented from leaving the country and even from taking flights within Venezuela, while many of the people who support me in my campaign rallies are subject to retaliation,” he denounced, also highlighting the arrest of eight collaborators and the order to arrest seven more, six of them took refuge in the Argentine embassy.

Machado won the opposition primary to be the presidential candidate on July 28, but a 15-year ban on holding public office, which she rejects, prevented her from registering for the trial.

His replacement, academic Corina Yoris, was also unable to register her candidacy due to lack of access to the automated system of the National Electoral Council (CNE), controlled by Chavismo. The Democratic United Platform received an extension from the CNE, which allowed diplomat Edmundo González to register provisionally through the charter of the Democratic Unity Table, with the aim of protecting the political rights of the organization until the unitary candidacy is formalized.

Mature called Machado’s party a “terrorist movement”, and in Parliament he has promoted a law to punish “fascism,” a term he uses to refer to opponents and which critics say seeks to intimidate the opposition. The project, approved in the first discussion, provides for imprisonment of up to 12 years and fines of 50,000 to 100,000 dollars.

Arrests

In his letter released yesterday, Machado also denounces that the Barbados agreement, signed by the regime and the opposition to obtain a free vote in the presidential elections scheduled for July, “it was completely violated by the regime” who “tried to prevent by any means my participation as a candidate in the country’s democratic forces”.

In addition to the EU, the Venezuelan dissident leader also sent her note to the governments of Germany, Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Spain, United States, France, Honduras, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom, South Africa and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. She invites everyone to put pressure on the government of Nicolás Maduro to respect the Barbados Agreements and accept the candidacy of Professor Yoris.

In the letter he denounced his opponent the arrest of at least eight members of his team election campaign and the interruption of electricity at the Argentine embassy where six opponents were staying, among other incidents. Likewise, he warned that Maduro has described his party, Vente Venezuela, as a “terrorist organization” and “to accuse us they have falsified evidence and forced some detainees to accuse their colleagues of false armed conspiracies.”

The head of the Electoral Council, Elvis Amoroso, announced that a European Union delegation will arrive in Caracas on Sunday to begin the work of observing the presidential elections. “We will inform each of the observers who will come to our country on how the planning of the electoral process is going (…) so that there is no kind of doubt,” said Amoroso, himself sanctioned by Brussels after the elections. journalists. disqualifications on opponents that he had imposed in his previous management as controller. The former EU observer mission They suddenly left Caracas in 2021 after being accused of being “enemies” and “spies”.