Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told Newsmax on Monday that she remains in hiding and on the run from Nicolas Maduro's "brutal persecution campaign" of everyone who had a hand in defeating him in last summer's election.
Machado was part of the opposition that behind candidate Edmundo González, handily defeated Maduro on July 28. Electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party, however, declared Maduro the winner hours after polls closed. But the opposition collected tally sheets from more than 80% of electronic voting machines, posted them online and said the tallies show González won twice as many votes as Maduro.
While Gonzalez is exiled in Spain, Machado remains, albeit in hiding, in hopes of somehow, someday ousting Maduro and his "criminal structure," she said in an appearance on "The Record With Greta Van Susteren."
"I'm in hiding as most of Venezuelan citizens that have fought for democracy in the last years and defeated the dictator Nicolas Maduro last July 28 by a landslide," Machado said. "[W]e defeated, 70-30, his candidacy, and from then on, he simply unleashed the most brutal persecution campaign with more than 2,000 people in prison, even children; women that have been tortured, hundreds of Venezuelans that have been forced to leave our country because they were accused of being terrorists, and just because they defended the vote and demonstrated that [Maduro] was defeated.
"I've been accused as well, and I have to be in hiding since then, over seven months," she told Van Susteren. "But we are determined to move forward and to oust this regime that is not only a dictatorship, but Maduro is the head of a criminal structure that has turned Venezuela into the hub of criminal organizations in this hemisphere, giving safe haven to the enemies of the United States, such as Hezbollah, Iran, Hamas, and the drug cartels."
Machado says hope lies in the fact that Maduro "is in the weakest position ever."
"And the fact is that he's internationally isolated. What has he got left? Iran? Russia? That's it. Hezbollah, Hamas. But we know that you can see how their partners have been weakened," Machado said. "It is proven that this is not a regular dictatorship. This is a criminal structure, a criminal system that should be addressed by a law enforcement approach.
"How does these criminal structures finally fall? When they stop getting their resources. And that's exactly what we need from the international community — close the flows that comes from drug trafficking, or oil, black market and gold smuggling and money laundering."
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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