Chuck DarwinThe Venezuelan opposition leader #María #Corina #Machado has
💥vowed to return to the country as soon as possible and rejected the authority of the interim president backed – for now – by the US after it forcibly removed Nicolás Maduro from power.
Machado told Fox News from an undisclosed location that her movement was ready to win a free #election, and praised Donald Trump for toppling Maduro.
Many in Venezuela and abroad had expected Machado to take charge of the country after Maduro’s detention on Saturday
-- but Trump sidelined her and gave his backing to Maduro’s former vice-president, #Delcy #Rodríguez.
“I’m planning to go back to Venezuela as soon as possible,”
Machado said in the interview.
“We believe that this transition should move forward.
We won an election [in 2024] by a landslide under fraudulent conditions.
In free and fair elections, we will win over 90% of the votes.”
⚠️She accused Rodríguez of being “one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narco-trafficking” in Venezuela and said repression had increased since the weekend.
The industrial engineer, 58, also said 👉she had not spoken to Trump since 10 October, the day it was announced that she had won the Nobel peace prize.
“But I do want to say today, on behalf of the Venezuelan people,
how grateful we are for his courageous vision,
the actions – historical actions – he has taken against this narco-terrorist regime, to start dismantling this structure and bringing Maduro to justice,” she said.
The Wall Street Journal reportedthat Trump had decided to back Rodríguez after CIA analysts briefed him that Machado and her electoral candidate. -- the retired diplomat #Edmundo #González #Urrutia, “would struggle to gain legitimacy as leaders while facing resistance from pro-regime security services, drug-trafficking networks and political opponents”.
The Washington Post, however, reported the decision may have been more personal -- that Trump may have been irritated that Machado accepted the prize.
“If she had turned it down and said: ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’
she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” a source told the paper.
Asked by Fox News whether she had offered to give Trump the prize, Machado said:
“It hasn’t happened yet,
but I would certainly love to be able to personally tell him that we believe the Venezuelan people – because this is a prize of the Venezuelan people – certainly want to give it to him and share it with him.”
Trump has said he wants to work with Rodríguez and the rest of Maduro’s former team -- provided they submit to US demands on oil.
He has poured cold water on the idea that a vote could be held within the next 30 days.
The News Lens
OsazuwaAkonedo
Ivan
rssbot
Telecast India
