One week before the presidential elections in Venezuela, Opposition member María Corina Machado spoke of the sabotage and blockades she has suffered from officials of Nicolás Maduro’s regime.
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How has this campaign process been? What do you expect from President Gustavo Petro? How do you see Edmundo González in the run-up to the elections? The opposition leader spoke with Juan Roberto Vargas, director of Noticias Caracol.
Maria Corina Machado and her message to Colombia
“If there is a people who can understand what we Venezuelans are experiencing today, It is precisely the people of Colombia. For all that unites us in the past, present and future. There can be no sustainable peace in Colombia if there is no freedom in Venezuela. There will be no freedom in Venezuela if there is no peace in Colombia. Our destinies are intrinsically linked. I know that you support and understand, having welcomed 3 million Venezuelans in these terrible years. July 28 is the opportunity to have a total change in our country. It has been 25 years of destruction on all levels,” said María Corina Machado.
The opposition leader said that during this period, “all institutions have been destroyed, freedom of expression, education, justice have been eliminated. Millions of families have been separated. A quarter of Venezuelans fled because they were persecuted or saw no future. July 28th represents that this can change.”
“This has become an existential struggle”: María Corina Machado
The opposition leader said she still does not believe what is happening in Venezuela today and that this movement is already going beyond the electoral.
“They tore up roads that are in bad condition in our country and people walked for 5 hours. They closed the hotels so that we had nowhere to stay and people offered us their houses. People gave us water, cookies, fruit. This has become a cause, a social movement of liberation and redemption, of breaking down the barriers that the Chavez and Maduro regime had encountered. We are finding ourselves as a nation that wants the same thing, to live with opportunities, justice, freedom and dignity.“, he stressed.
María Corina Machado spoke of the dirty game played by the regime, which is arresting and hindering those who help the opposition and its candidate, Edmundo González.
“What is becoming evident is that they no longer have people, what is happening in what was once Chavismo is a stampede. People know that this is over, there is no future there and they have come to us to find a space for joint construction. I have not had a single interview on national television or radio. Not a single piece of publicity. This has become something that the people have appropriated, they cannot stop that,” said the opposition member.
María Corina Machado invited Venezuelans to take care of the votes: “You have to go very early, as early as possible, you have to take care of the centers as a family all day. It’s not like before when you voted and left. Everyone, all day as a family, taking turns, protecting the center and the work. The integration with the commanders to bring them food, drink, whatever our witnesses need. The photographic record, everyone with their cell phone so that they can transmit and the world can see this massive civic, peaceful and orderly participation. The counting is public, everyone has the right to see how it is counted piece by piece.”
The opposition leader emphasized that the electoral process in Venezuela is not free: “Nobody is acting naively, we are going through an electoral process that is not fair.”
“I know it has been very hard to leave the country, I know it was hard to leave behind your dreams, family, property and things. This is a time when the country needs you, come and vote, make an effort, cross the border and come and vote.“, invited Maria Corina Machado.
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Source: https://www.noticiascaracol.com/mundo/maria-corina-machado-sobre-elecciones-en-venezuela-nos-estamos-encontrando-como-nacion-rg10
