2024-01-26 22:29:50
The Supreme Court of Venezuela ratified this Friday the disqualification for 15 years of the leader María Corina Machadowinner of the opposition primaries for this year’s presidential elections.
“She is disqualified for fifteen (15) years for being involved (…) in the corruption plot of the usurper Juan Guaidó”, proclaimed interim president until January 2023 in an attempt to overthrow the government of President Nicolás Maduro, said the maximum court in sentencing.
The Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), with a pro-government line, created a mechanism to challenge disqualifications for those who “aspire to run” for the 2024 presidential elections, under pressure from the United States and in the midst of the agreements signed in Barbados by the government and opposition in a negotiation process mediated by Norway.
Earlier also ratified the disqualification of Henrique Caprileswho faced former president Hugo Chávez in 2012 and a year later against Maduro.
Political disqualifications are an old weapon of Chavismo to get its rivals out of the way. They are imposed by the Comptroller’s Office, empowered by law to take measures against officials under investigation, although the Constitution establishes that only a “definitely firm” judicial ruling prevents aspiring to the presidency.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro will possibly seek re-election this year. Photo: XINHUA
The Political-Administrative Chamber of the TSJ validated the arguments of this body to sanction Machado, 56, for being “participant in the corruption plot orchestrated by the usurper Juan Antonio Guaidó M., which led to the criminal blockade of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as well as the shameless dispossession of the companies and wealth of the Venezuelan people abroad, with the complicity of corrupt governments.”
Guaidó, today in exile, was recognized as the country’s interim president by more than 60 countries, including the United States, which unsuccessfully pressured Maduro’s fall with sanctions.
The Court’s arguments
Machado had been disqualified for a year in 2015 for attending as Panama’s “alternate ambassador” to a meeting of the Organization of American States where she denounced alleged human rights violations during the protests that year called for “the departure” of Maduro and left 40 dead.
But the sanction was extended to 15 years last June for having “requested the application of sanctions and economic blockade that caused damage to Venezuelan health.”
The liberal leader maintained that was never notified about the measurewhich he always called illegal, and despite his disqualification, he won more than 2 million votes (92%) in the primaries of the main opposition alliance.
This Friday’s decision In practice, it closes the possibility that he could confront Maduro, natural candidate of Chavismo, in the elections scheduled for the second half of this year with international observation, also part of what was agreed in Barbados.
The Supreme Court reported decisions favorable to the leaders Leocenis García, a former prisoner and leader not aligned with the traditional opposition; Richard Mardo, a former parliamentarian; the former governor of the state of Zulia (west), Pablo Pérez; and Daniel Ceballos, former “political prisoner” and former mayor of San Cristóbal (Táchira, west).
Capriles, who gave up participating in the opposition primaries last October, in which Machado swept, did not adhere to the Barbados mechanism. The Chamber responded to an appeal filed in 2017, the year in which he was sanctioned for alleged administrative irregularities during his term as governor of the state of Miranda (2013-2017), which covers part of Caracas.
“What they will never be able to disable is the feeling of change among Venezuelans,” Capriles wrote in alternative that competes and can change the worst government in history.
The challenge mechanism was created under pressure from the United States, which conditioned it on the easing of US sanctions on Venezuelan oil, gas and gold for six months.
The negotiations also led to the release of prisoners in Venezuela in exchange for the release in the United States of Colombian businessman Alex Saab, accused by the opposition of being a “front man” for Maduro and who was being tried in Florida for money laundering.
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