The trajectory of María Corina Machado: from the realm of traditional politics to mass mobilization

María Corina Machado was for many years the ideal opponent of Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution. The daughter of an important metallurgy businessman, the former Venezuelan president set her up as his antipode: the “excellent-looking bourgeoisie”, a tool of US imperialism. And he, for his part, did not abandon his opposition to the “regime” that, he said, would lead Venezuela to become Cuba. She had loyal followers, but they did not extend beyond the traditional elite. Two decades later, the conservative politician has become the opposition leader who keeps President Nicolás Maduro awake at night. More moderate and accommodating, she is a mass mobilizer who threatens to end 25 years of Chavismo.

If it were not for the disqualification on the official line by the Comptroller General’s Office and confirmed by the Supreme Court in January, Machado would have been on the ballot for this Sunday’s presidential elections. In October 2023, he had won 92.5% of the vote in the opposition primaries. His exclusion from the elections was, at its best, a hard personal and political blow. However, against all odds, he managed to transfer his votes to Edmundo González Urrutia, who until a few months ago was an unknown diplomat. Together, the two have toured Venezuela and claim that they will be victorious. After so many defeats, she assures that she has never had so much support as before the elections. In the meantime, he recognizes Machado’s leadership and promises her “the position she wants” in his final government.

A few years ago, few would have thought that Machado would lead a unified opposition and bring it so close to victory. In 2012, in the opposition primary elections, she received only 3.81% of the vote against Henrique Caprilles (64.3%). Later, her radical stance of forcing Maduro to step down with mass mobilization or “use of force” did not help her. It was pushed to a secondary place. Until two years ago, there was a sudden surge in its popularity. An attempt to consolidate a parallel government in the hands of Juan Guaidó, the “interim president” appointed by the National Assembly – elected in 2015 and with an opposition majority – had failed. She remained marginalized and, facing fatigue with the rest of the opposition, she consolidated herself as an alternative.

Analyst Maryhen Jiménez, a researcher at the University of Oxford, explains that the fall of the interim government, the absence of opposition responses to society and Machado’s critical stance allowed her to run a different campaign this time. “We must remember that in the opposition primaries María Corina put a central issue on the table: Venezuelan migration (close to 7.5 million). No other politician made it part of their campaign, but she did and that allowed her to connect with Venezuelan society in a different way,” she tells EL PAÍS.

For Paola Bautista, political scientist and vice president of the Primero Justicia party, the leader has managed to create a unity that goes beyond political parties, and that enjoys broad popular support. “It is a different entity than we had in previous processes. Before, in previous electoral processes, the center of unity was the parties. That unity disappeared when political structures ran into a crisis of representation. Unity is now beyond; that is to say, the parties are involved, but he is a great organizer and speaker,” she explains.

Years of confrontation

The opposition leader began his political career as a co-founder of the NGO Sumate. The organization declared that its purpose was to ensure electoral transparency, but it soon became a stronghold of the opposition. Machado was then seen as a radical, and it did not help that he was present at the Miraflores presidential palace during the failed civilian-military coup of 2002 – although he later denied supporting it. Likewise, the leader never abandoned his ties with the United States. In 2005, a photo taken at the White House with President George Bush spread throughout the country and received both support and rejection of all kinds. Since then, he has established himself as a representative of US imperialism for the Chavistas and a potential presidential candidate for some sectors of the opposition.

Chávez and Machado had a confrontation in 2012 that remains etched in the country’s memory. During the president’s last address to the National Assembly – he died the following year – she paused to confront him. She told him that “civilized Venezuela” did not want to move toward “communism”: “How can you say you respect the private sector in Venezuela when it has dedicated itself to expropriation, which is theft?” For his part, he listened to her until the end and then replied sarcastically, to the cheers of his followers: “That is out of the question.” Ranking To argue with me. I am very sorry, I am very sorry. But this is the truth. You even called me a thief in front of the country, but I will not offend you. “The eagle does not hunt flies, deputy.”

The confrontation intensified after Nicolás Maduro’s victory in the 2013 presidential elections, which the opposition described as fraudulent. A sector of the opposition, called La Salida and led by Machado along with Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma, lost hope of coming to power through the elections and began promoting mass mobilization to demand the president’s resignation. Between February and May 2014, the country was rocked by student protests. The government responded with brutal repression and 44 people were killed. Machado, who remained the undisputed leader of La Salida after López’s arrest, opposed attempts by other sectors of the opposition to establish dialogue with the executive. He argued that these initiatives only served to buy time to Chavismo and weaken the protests.

That year the political persecution against Marchado began. Chavismo expelled him from the Assembly on the pretext that Panama had designated him as “alternate ambassador” to the OAS – a move so that he could participate in a debate on Venezuela – and that this was incompatible with his parliamentary duties. Later, the justice system prevented him from leaving the country, knowing that one of his main activities was to denounce government abuses in the United States and Europe. Chavismo also accused him of allegedly plotting to assassinate Maduro. Finally, in 2015, the Comptroller’s Office disqualified him for 12 months and prevented him from being elected as a representative in that year’s elections.

Radicalisation continued on both sides. In 2017, Chavismo formed a Constituent Assembly to circumvent parliament, which was in the hands of the opposition. Machado, for her part, split from the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD). She was critical of the opposition leadership’s negotiations and decision to participate in the 2018 regional elections, elections that for her had become “an illusion and a fraud”. “You are not getting real power and you are giving up moral authority (against Venezuela),” she told this newspaper then. Over the years, she lost prominence but stuck to her stance. In 2019, she caused a stir by defending foreign intervention in Venezuela in an interview with the BBC. “A criminal regime will only be voted out of power in the face of a credible, imminent and serious threat of the use of force,” she declared.

Change in strategy

Political scientist Jiménez says the opposition leader, sometimes called Venezuela’s ‘Iron Lady’, changed her strategy from “confrontation” to strategic restraint. “Until last year, Machado’s strategy was focused on non-recognition of the government. For years she preferred other mechanisms and routes towards a change in the political regime. But, in 2023 she knew how to read the context, she left her traditional opposition to become a leader with the capacity to reach many groups.

When the former deputy was prevented from running in the presidential election, he gave his support to a university professor, Corina Yoris, who until then was unknown in the political environment, so that she could face Maduro in his place. The strategy was not successful because Chavismo also prevented the registration of the academic’s candidacy through disqualification from the Comptroller’s Office.

After Yoris’ exit from the electoral race, support shifted to former diplomat Gonzalez, who managed to reach the final stage of the election and is well ahead of Maduro according to surveys such as Delfos and ORC Consultores. “Maria Corina continues campaigning. She has become the great unionist of Venezuelan society in this presidential race in an unusual context because in the primaries a leader is chosen but she cannot be a candidate,” says Jimenez.

“Facing the Unknown”

According to Bautista, unlike other opponents, this leadership has been built through two decades of “flexibility and coherence”: “She has been in the great democratic events of the country. She has never worried about having a good relationship with the regime, but about empathizing with Venezuelans. In Venezuela we know that fighting against the dictatorship is facing the unknown, but she has strong convictions and she works as a team.”

In the midst of the electoral campaign, arrests have intensified against people who offer some type of assistance or services on the tours of González and Machado, to the extent that the NGO Foro Penal puts the number at more than a hundred, most of them in the last month. A few days ago, the former deputy reported the vandalism of the cars used by him and his team in the town of Barquisimeto, in the Lara state (western Venezuela), on July 18. “They cut the brake hose, which is clearly an attack on the lives of those of us who use these vehicles,” the opponent said. The version of the attack was rejected by Attorney General Tarek William Saab, who said it was a “false positive”.

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