- Machado says that Rodríguez is rejected by the Venezuelan people.
- Machado predicts that the opposition will obtain more than 90% of the votes.
- Machado is committed to dismantling criminal structures.
WASHINGTON: Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said Monday she plans to return home “as soon as possible” and sharply criticized the interim president in Caracas.
In her first public comments since a social media post over the weekend, when the US military forcibly removed President Nicolás Maduro from power, the Nobel Peace Prize winner vowed to return to her country.
“I’m planning to return to Venezuela as soon as possible,” Machado told host Sean Hannity on fox newsspeaking from an undisclosed location.
Machado openly rejected the country’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, saying that she “is one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption and drug trafficking.”
Rodríguez, who has expressed her willingness to cooperate with Washington, was vice president of Venezuela during the Maduro government.
Machado said that Rodríguez is “rejected” by the Venezuelan people and that voters were on the side of the opposition.
“In free and fair elections we will win by more than 90% of the votes, I have no doubt about that,” said Machado.
Machado also promised to “turn Venezuela into the energy center of America” and “dismantle all these criminal structures” that have harmed his compatriots, promising to “bring home millions of Venezuelans who have been forced to flee our country.”
To the disappointment of the Venezuelan opposition, Trump has made light of the idea of Machado, a 58-year-old opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, taking power, saying she lacked support.
Machado was banned from running in the 2024 election, but has said his ally Edmundo González, 76, who the opposition and some international observers say overwhelmingly won that vote, has a democratic mandate to assume the presidency.
