Four months before the presidential election in Venezuela, two relatives of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado were arrested on Wednesday March 20 in Caracas. And seven other arrest warrants were issued against members of his team. “These arrests are a sign of great weakness. They know they are lost,” declared to the press, the 56-year-old opponent, after denouncing “the brutal repression of the regime against its teams”.
Speaking on television, Attorney General Tarek William Saab said the nine defendants are accused of participating in a “destabilizing plot” and to have notably planned “attacks on barracks”. He specified that the confessions of a relative of Mme Machado, arrested in early March, helped foil the said plot. The presidential candidate denied the accusations, calling Mr. Saab a “terror prosecutor”.
These new arrests come as the March 25 deadline for registering candidates for the presidential election approaches. On Sunday, President Nicolas Maduro confirmed that he would run for a third term on July 28 for the United Socialist Party. The opposition is under pressure. Mme Machado, who won the opposition primaries, cannot, in fact, submit his candidacy, the Supreme Court of Justice having recently confirmed his sentence to fifteen years of ineligibility. The question of whether she will withdraw from the presidential race in favor of another candidate is raised.
Don’t give in anything
The opposition considers that the ineligibility of Mme Machado constitutes a violation of the electoral rules on which she agreed in October 2023 with the government. Signed under the aegis of Norway, the Barbados agreement received the approval of the United States, which decided to partially suspend economic sanctions against the country. On Friday, the negotiator of the agreement, Gerardo Blyde, declared on the radio “that there was still time” for the government to rectify and “to authorize all applications without obstruction”. But no one seems to believe it anymore.
Ultraliberal, determined and individualist, Mme Machado has long appeared as an uncontrollable pawn. By winning the primaries with more than 90% of the votes, she created a surprise and established herself as leader of the opposition. No one now disputes his leadership. The question of his possible replacement is tactical. On social networks, voters are calling on the candidate not to give in and not to “let dictator Maduro choose his opponent”. They consider that abstention remains the only option to discredit the regime.
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