MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuelan opposition picks alternate candidate given the ban on Machado

“We have taken a big step towards” victory, Machado underlined when announcing the PUD's decision

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado of the Plataforma Unitaria Democrática (PUD), who has been banned from running in this year's July 28 presidential elections, Friday told her followers that they should vote for Historian Corina Yoris, who is “the ideal candidate” to circumvent her “unlawful, totally unconstitutional and coward” disenfranchisement until 2036.

 “We found the right person and she is a person who has the respect of all those who knew her throughout her academic, professional, citizen life,” Machado said about Yoris, who “is not disqualified” and is a person of her “total confidence.”

Machado also explained that Friday's decision stemmed “from the discussion of the unitary forces” to devise an agreed mechanism to face “this hindrance.” She also pledged to continue “touring all of Venezuela” to bring “strength and hope to every corner of the country” as she accused Nicolás Masduro's government of closing “the path to change, to freedom in peace.”

“But they will not succeed, we are determined to move forward and do whatever has to be done to stay within this route and fulfill a mandate, a mandate of almost 3 million Venezuelans that on October 22 we managed, with a glorious primary, to show the world what we are capable of,” she added.

Yoris said she was feeling “tremendously committed to the Venezuelan people” and to Machado, whom she thanked for this “act of trust” while expressing her willingness to move towards “a path of transition.” She was chosen unanimously within the PUD after serving as a member of the committee behind the October primaries in which Machado got 92.35% of the votes. “That was when I met her,” Machado stressed.

“Today is a great day and we have taken a big step towards the electoral victory in which we are going to defeat Nicolás Maduro this year. The regime knows it is lost and that the people are with us. We know that we are an immense majority and that we are willing to do everything for our freedom and how, in the face of all obstacles, nothing has stopped us,” Machado also noted.

She also explained that “up to 10 days before the election there can be a substitution, so here we are going to fight until the last day, but we are not going to allow the regime to have an excuse. And nothing and nobody will get us out of this fight.”

“The international community, which claims to endorse the Barbados Agreement, the democratic forces, and those of us who are here have complied with all the points of the agreement, from its first to its last letter. The regime has violated all its commitments, it was not enough to persecute me, to threaten us, to close the roads with an absurd disqualification,” she also argued.