Former US President George W. Bush shakes hands with María Corina Machado (left), then executive director of Sumate, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, May 31, 2005. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images/File photo.
Last Friday, Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) confirmed the disqualification of far-right politician María Corina Machado from holding any public office for 15 years.
The ruling follows ruling No. 00005, file No. 2023-0461, referring to precautionary protection requested by Machado for the “alleged material actions carried out by the Comptroller General of the Republic.”
The ruling states that Machado, founder of the Vente Venezuela political organization was a participant in the “corruption plot orchestrated by the usurper Juan Guaidó,” leader of the Popular Will party (VP) who, supported by the United States and a handful of Western countries, proclaimed himself “president of Venezuela” back in 2019, despite never running for the position nor, evidently, receiving any votes.
The recognition of Guaidó’s fake presidency by the US and its vassals was followed by the illegal implementation of unilateral coercive measures—euphemistically referred to as “sanctions”—that undermined Venezuela’s economy by suffocating its oil industry and access to foreign currency, producing hyper-inflation and widespread poverty.
Venezuela’s highest judicial body stated that Machado’s claim “does not comply with the requirements established and demanded in the Barbados Agreement signed on October 17, 2023.”
An agreement signed between the government and the Unitary Platform, which houses some far- right opposition parties, allowed right-wing politicians to request that their disqualification be reviewed before the country’s highest court.
Machado repeatedly ignored the agreement, claiming that “no one had notified her that she was disqualified,” Nevertheless, a few hours after the closing of the deadline for filing the request, on December 15, 2023, she appeared at the TSJ and pleaded to have her case reviewed. Her appearance at the TSJ was first reported by the US Embassy in Bogota, Colombia.
Similar contradictory and erratic behavior has characterized the political career of Machado. She has always opted for extremism and has repeatedly expressed her non-recognition of state institutions.
NGO against democracy
In 2002, Machado founded Súmate, an NGO whose purpose was to promote “electoral transparency.”
However, on April 12 of that same year, she was one of the 400 people who signed the Constitution of the Government of Democratic Transition and National Unity, better known as the “Carmona Decree,” a document whereby the president of the Fedecámaras chamber of commerce at that time, Pedro Carmona, named himself president of Venezuela and annulled Venezuela’s constitution and National Assembly during a brief coup d’état against President Hugo Chávez.
In 2004, the attorney general of Venezuela, Isaías Rodríguez, demonstrated how Súmate received financing from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organization linked to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with the excuse of using it for “training workshops on electoral matters.”
The attorney general demonstrated that the funds were diverted and used to carry out illegal activities. “The large sum of dollars contributed by the NED was used by the Súmate board to politically and electorally confront the president of the Republic, Hugo Chávez Frías,” stated the attorney general.
On May 31, 2005, María Corina Machado, still as president of this NGO, held a meeting with the then president of the United States, George W. Bush, in the White House itself, which would take place thanks to her ties with the most radical elements of the US Republican party.
At that time, current First Lady Cilia Flores, who was a member of Venezuela’s National Assembly (AN), said that the purpose of this meeting was to ask Washington for more money and for guidelines to “continue with its hidden agenda.”
Cabello: Venezuela’s Opposition Pleased with María Corina Machado’s Disqualification
Violent plans
In 2011, Machado was elected deputy to the National Assembly for the state of Miranda. However, she would not cease her crusade against the national government using this platform.
In a particularly memorable episode during President Chávez’s 2012 Annual Message, he responded to her insolence by stating that an “eagle does not catch flies.”
With the electoral victory of the Revolution that year and that of President Nicolás Maduro a year later, after the death of Hugo Chávez, a new wave of violent actions would begin.
On February 12, 2014, Machado joined the leader of Voluntad Popular, Leopoldo López, in a violent plan called La Salida which saw 43 citizens and members of the security forces murdered throughout the country. In many cases, citizens and security forces were shot in the face for trying to remove barricades set up by the far-right organizers of the so-called Guarimbas.
In March 2014, Machado, who was still an AN deputy, intended to speak before the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States as alternate ambassador of the government of Panama, an action that ultimately did not proceed.
The Venezuelan government asserted that by accepting this investiture, Machado had automatically resigned from her position as a parliamentarian, because it violated the provisions of the Constitution.
The then president of the National Assembly, Deputy Diosdado Cabello, explained that the action violated Article 191 of the Constitution, which establishes that parliamentarians “will not be able to hold public office for foreign governments without losing their investiture” except under specific exemptions for which Machado did not qualify.
Sanctions
With the arrival of the opposition majority in parliament in 2015 and the activation of Guaidó’s fake “interim government” in 2019, Machado became a fake “ambassador” and requested that the United States and its allies apply unilateral coercive measures to Venezuela. These “sanctions” cost Venezuela approximately US $642 billion between 2015 and 2022, as recently estimated by President Nicolas Maduro
In addition, she repeatedly requested the activation of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), disguised as a “peace force,” which aimed to overthrow the president through violent means. Furthermore, Machado pushed for the use of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) imperialist doctrine as an alternative method to overthrow the government through foreign military intervention.
The seven reasons of the TSJ for her disqualification
• She engaged in the corruption plot orchestrated by the usurper Juan Guaidó, who promoted the criminal blockade of Venezuela.
• She supported the dispossession of the companies and wealth of the Venezuelan people abroad, including the seizure of CITGO holdings and petroleum corporation, which caused property damage of US $32.5 billion.
• She supported the dispossession of the Colombian-Venezuelan company Monómeros, which was returned to Venezuela bankrupted when President Petro took office in Colombia.
• She supported the illegal retention of 31 tons of gold by the Bank of England.
• She supported the freezing of $4 billion in the international financial system.
• Machado requested sanctions that prevented the purchase of medications for 60,000 HIV patients.
• She accepted the position of diplomatic representative of Panama before the Organization of American States.
(Últimas Noticias) by Victor Lara with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
