Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado Points to Maduro’s Regime as a ‘Threat to the Security of the Hemisphere’

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said Sunday that the administration of Nicolas Maduro, who was sworn in on January 10 as president for a third consecutive six-year term after his controversial re-election last July, represents a “threat to the security of the hemisphere.   “We all know that the Maduro regime is a threat to the security of the hemisphere. Venezuela will be free,” wrote the former deputy in X, who claims the victory of the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia in the presidential elections of July 28, despite the fact that the Chavista was the candidate proclaimed the winner by the National Electoral Council (CNE), controlled by rectors close to Chavismo.  According to Machado, who did not provide an explanation for her statement, the future of democracy and stability in the region “will be defined by the struggle” in the Caribbean country and “outside of it.” 

Last Tuesday, the anti-Chavez activist said that, on the other hand, a “free” Venezuela would be the “best investment opportunity in this hemisphere and, perhaps, in the world,” while accusing the Maduro administration of being a “mafia regime” and of having “plundered” the country.  That same day, Machado said that it was “time for concrete actions by the democratic governments of the Americas,” after the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, received González Urrutia, whom he called “president,” and announced the decision to declare the criminal gang Tren de Aragua, born in Venezuelan prisons, a “terrorist group.”  Maduro was declared the winner of the elections based on results that the CNE has not yet published in detail, contrary to what was established in the schedule approved by the institution for holding these elections.  For its part, the largest opposition coalition – the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) – claims to have collected 85.18% of the “electoral records” that prove – it insists – that the winner was its candidate, González Urrutia, documents that Chavismo claims are false.

María Elvira Salazar, a US Republican Congress woman from Florida, a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, is good friends with Maria Corina Machado pictured above and had these comments on X.  Click on María Elvira Salazar’s live picture below to hear her speech.