• Venezuela The 'Maria Corina' phenomenon scares Chavismo
  • Latin America Opposition primaries take off in Venezuela with a unity debate against Maduro

The conservative candidate María Corina Machado returned to the electoral pre-campaign after the historic opposition debate with the narrow marking of the revolution. The national coordinator of Vente Venezuela suffered the onslaught of Chavista mobs on Friday in La Guaira, a coastal coast near the capital, and today in the Caracas Petar, one of the largest favelas in Latin America. In both cases his bodyguards and companions managed to avoid physical aggression.

"The people are clear. The regime only has violence left because they know they have been defeated. Venezuela has woken up because we know we are going to unite our families," Machado responded after the latest act of government violence.

The violent and radical groups of Chavismo function in a similar way to the famous acts of repudiation in Cuba: they are people carried by leaders and officials, who also participate in the traps. Despite this, the government assures that they are spontaneous acts of the people.

"We will continue touring all of Venezuela, to the last corner of our country because this territory belongs to all Venezuelans. What we are experiencing today, far from discouraging this struggle, gives us more reasons. Far from intimidating, this drives us. Violence is defeated with strength and organization," said the candidate after avoiding today's aggression, after being introduced at full speed in a vehicle by her companions, while violent groups tried to attack her.

The Chavista group attended Machado's electoral rally with banners ("Assassin!, "vendepatrias") and whistles, something that also happened yesterday in Vargas. Even scenes similar to those already suffered by another candidate for the opposition primaries, Henrique Capriles, were repeated, with women of great weight who try to reach the leaders with their blows. The former presidential candidate suffered punches, kicks and slaps from these supporters of Nicolas Maduro.

"Chavismo came talking about the poor and, after handling the largest amount of money in our history, ended up blackmailing small groups with a bag of poor quality food in exchange for these violent opponents. It is a description of socialism of the twenty-first century," said political scientist Walter Molina Galdi.

The opposition candidates to the primaries of October 22 staged this week the first electoral debate in a country where they are vetoed by the democratic blockade of the revolution. In the midst of a climate of unity against Maduro, several candidates stood out with their messages, including Machado herself, a great favorite for the internal opposition. The leader, who defines herself as a centrist liberal, leads all the polls with a wide margin over the rest of the contenders.

The prominence achieved by Machado in recent weeks provoked the reaction of the Miraflores Palace, which ordered his political disqualification for 15 years so that he cannot participate in next year's presidential elections, the same prohibition that Capriles and Freddy Superlano, standard-bearer of Voluntad Popular replacing Juan Guaidó, already suffer. Superlano already won the 2021 gubernatorial elections in Barinas, the cradle of the revolution, but was dispossessed when the government invented a supervening disqualification.

  • Venezuela

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