María Corina's Mantle

María Corina Machado, a longtime Venezuelan Democracy activist, is today the most popular politician in Venezuela. And Maduro knows it. That’s why his? government has banned her from running for president. But she doesn’t care. Maria Corina is going to push her campaign as far as she can. She’s not going to win, but she’s going to show Maduro and his administration just how far they’ve fallen from the vision Hugo Chavez had for his people when Maduro was still a bus driver.

I had a brief encounter with Machado’s team, which included about 45 minutes with María Corina, in Caracas in 2005 while reporting for what I had thought would be my first book. I had recently completed Sin Uniforme, an excellent unofficial biography of Chavez. I had also spent two meals with a few folks who had worked as confidential informants for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) until the Chavez regime had kicked all DEA agents out of the country. It had only been a handful of months since they had lost their jobs. But they still knew the score.

After the unofficial biography and various interviews, I was primed to sit a while with the men and women who followed Machado’s vision for a Democratic Venezuela. It was a bold vision and completely in opposition to Chavez’s own dream for their shared patria.?

Machado was on fire. Full of energy. Speaking that fast Caraque?o Spanish that takes some fine tuning for a non native speaker to work with without having to focus too much. But she wasn’t talking to me or my fixer – a local university professor.

Machado was talking to her Sumate leadership team, specifically to one guy who had been mid sentence with us before she walked in talking to someone else behind her. When she realized there were two “guests” in the room, she turned to me, and directly asked two questions, in accented but smooth English. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”?

We had an informal and informative conversation – off the record – while she was there, and with her team leaders after she left. Her charisma. Her infectious smile. Her tenacity and force. Her passion. It felt like she was trying to slay a dragon, and might win. It was a vivid first impression.

A few things from that moment, 18 years ago, come to mind now as I think of her running against Maduro within a broken system that heavily, impossibly even, favors the incumbent.

When I met her, Machado was focused on preserving Democracy in Venezuela. Sumate, her grassroots organization, was the vehicle. She was at the vanguard of election observation, of vote counting, socio-democratic transparency and electoral council purity. There were countless other tasks that together all pointed toward the preservation of the dying ideal of a Venezuelan Democracy. She had come from upper class stock but could talk to anyone and quickly make them feel at home.

But her charisma was not enough. She lost many battles in the early 2000s. And she has a steep hill to climb in 2023. But she’s got grit. Running against Maduro, in 2023, takes a lot of guts.

She will not win. So here are two things I think she’ll do while losing the election but setting up to win the long game.

First, Machado will unify the opposition again. In conversation with a friend in Venezuela, I was reminded that the opposition unified in a meaningful way in 2012, when Henrique Capriles won the primaries and a chance to run against Chavez. He won 44% of the vote, to Chavez’s 55%. It was the closest the opposition had come to winning back the presidency, then and since.

But the 2012 election is the exception, not the rule. Deep division has been the perennial thorn in the side of the opposition, Venezuela’s other half of a would-be two party system.?

Machado is as good a candidate as any to try to bring unity in 2023. But more importantly, the timing has never been better. Maduro’s popularity is extremely low. His disapproval ratings are over 80%, according to our friends in Caracas. What’s more, both the opposition and chavismo – a term loosely used to refer to Venezuela’s current ruling elite – know that Maduro is very unpopular. Something has to change. Venezuela’s opposition is – must be – at a point now where there’s a sense of a need to unify to earn the opportunity to bring that change.

A focal point is Henrique Capriles. He has the political party and social currency within the opposition to mount an effective campaign. But right now Machado is more popular. If he decides to bow out and support her, it would be a massive windfall to her campaign and further strengthen her opportunity to take a stab at the dragon.?

As it stands, however, Capriles is registered to run in the primaries, if they happen. Right now, Venezuela doesn’t have a National Electoral Council (CNE), and a forthcoming Supreme Court ruling may preclude the primaries by ruling that the vote cannot happen without a CNE. But the opposition will likely mount their own elections. After all, they need a mechanism – formally sanctioned or not – to determine who will win the chance to run against Maduro.

Machado will likely be the one because she currently has the most name recognition, street credit, and – again – grit. I believe she also wants to unify the opposition. But there will be many deals she’ll need to cut to get there. If she can cut a deal with Capriles, sources agree that the rest will fall in line.?

Second, she wants to take the bully pulpit to chavismo. Most Venezuelans have heard of Machado, but they know nothing about the primaries. Most are likely not even thinking of the forthcoming presidential elections. But when Machado comes to town, she tells them everything they need to know and more. Many observers are getting the feeling that they like what they hear. Machado’s railing against chavismo has earned her a lot of negative attention from Maduro’s team, so it must be striking a chord. She’s earned death threats, and public officials are threatening to harm her physically if she visits their state, or town. Still, she goes.?

She’s also bringing her message to the considerable and attentive Venezuelan diaspora through interviews with CNN, the Council of the Americas, Spanish (Spain) media and other outlets. What’s most important, however, is that she is taking her message directly to the people, to the street, where she has spent considerable time, since the late 1990s building her brand, her name, and over the years proving out her dedication to her country and its people.

Still, she will not win. She will not slay the dragon this time. But she will leverage that single voice, or as much of it as she can capture, into delivering what could one day be seen as the pommel strike that dizzied the dragon.?

There are thousands who will stand with her, even if she loses, and they will remain with her – and the opposition – after next year’s elections. Observers are betting that it will be Machado’s pressure that forces the Maduro regime to do better in 2024 and beyond. And it might just be Machado who delivers the death blow in 2028.

On my first reporting trip to Cuba in 1999, I was taken in by the dedication to people and country displayed by Castro, Guevara, and Cienfuegos – the heroes of the revolution. It was Castro who mentored Chavez and helped him see a way to ignite the hearts of the common men and women of Venezuela.?

Hasta el final, “until the end” is a line that Castro used a lot to describe in a few words his dedication to his ideology, to his people and country. Chavez wore the same mantle, and it won him a nation – nearly a continent. But that grit and determination is lost on the current regime ruling Venezuela.?

Instead, it lies now on the shoulders of a woman who will go until the end to fight for what she believes. It’s ironic that Machado and Chavez, for as much as they disagreed and fought with one another, have in common the three things that propelled Chavez to power: exceptional charisma, a love for Venezuela, and a love for its people.