Venezuela: Maduro’s power is “not viable”, assures the leader of the opposition

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who claims her camp’s victory in the July presidential election, said Friday that Nicolas Maduro’s power was “not viable”, two months after the leader’s contested re-election.

“It’s an untenable situation. Maduro is trying to convey to his people (…) that this is stabilizing, that the world will turn the page, that the Venezuelans will be silent. This will not happen,” says Ms. Machado, 56 years old, during an interview with AFP.

“This system is not viable financially, diplomatically and, above all, socially. It is impossible for Venezuela to stabilize. Maduro has 90% of the country against him. The only thing left is violence and terror “, adds Ms. Machado, who won the opposition primaries but was declared ineligible by the government.

Living in hiding since the July 28 election, she was interviewed by videoconference, appearing in front of a white background, thus avoiding any indication of her place of stay.

– “delegitimized” –

Mr. Maduro, whose victory was validated by the Supreme Court on August 22, was proclaimed winner with 52% of the votes by the National Electoral Council which, however, did not make public the minutes of the polling stations.

According to the opposition, which published the vote count provided by its scrutineers, its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia obtained more than 60% of the votes.

After the announcement of Mr. Maduro’s re-election, spontaneous demonstrations left 27 dead and 192 injured. Some 2,400 people were also arrested, according to official sources.

“No one doubts the victory of Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia (…) We are in a completely new phase, where the regime is absolutely delegitimized, where its policy of repression has been so brutal that it has (…) makes the regime a pariah at the international level,” said Ms. Machado, welcoming “total support, total alignment” from the international community.

“This has an impact on the pillars of the system, which are fewer and fewer and increasingly weak,” she believes, on the eve of a major mobilization, two months to the day after the election.

To circumvent possible repression, the opposition chose not to hold a rally with “50,000 people”, but rather “a thousand assemblies of 50 people each. It’s very powerful”, estimates Ms Machado.

– migratory wave –

The opposition leader also highlights the economic difficulties the country is going through, ensuring that the number of people crossing the Brazilian border has increased from 50 per day before the election to more than 300.

“Some people cannot wait (for a change, editor’s note) (…). When you are hungry, when you cannot enroll your child in school, when you cannot pay for your medicine, you cannot wait,” she notes.

Some seven of Venezuela’s 30 million people have fled the country since 2014 due to the country’s political and economic crisis, and experts expect a new wave of migration.

“Every day that passes, the cost of staying in power for Maduro increases. Every day that passes, they get weaker. Every day that passes, we receive more support,” assures Ms. Machado.

The leader says she is acting to reduce Mr. Maduro’s “exit cost”, but refuses to give any indication of the offer that could be proposed to him as a possible immunity.

She also assures that the army, one of the pillars of power, is cracking with “fewer and fewer military commanders”.

And promises that next “January 10”, the date of the transfer of power between the two presidential terms, it will be Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia who “will take the oath in Venezuela”.

On a personal level, she explains that she sometimes lives for “weeks without human contact”, but for the moment refuses to go into exile like Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia, a refugee in Spain: “I am where I feel most useful for the fight in Venezuela.

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