Venezuela's Supreme Court, loyal to President Nicolas Maduro's government, on Friday, January 26, disqualified opposition leader Maria Corina Machado – who handily won a 2023 primary vote – from seeking election this year. The court upheld a 15-year ban on Machado, 56, from holding public office and also confirmed the ineligibility of a possible opposition stand-in – two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles. The United States and others have repeatedly called for the reinstatement of disqualified opposition candidates ahead of elections, for which a date has yet to be set.
Maduro's government and the opposition agreed in talks in Barbados last year to hold a free and fair vote in 2024 with international observers present. That agreement saw the United States ease sanctions against Venezuela, allowing Chevron to resume limited oil extraction as part of an effort to keep down global prices as the West pressed sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine. It also led to a prisoner swap.
But the Supreme Court said Friday Machado would remain disqualified "for being involved... in the corruption plot orchestrated by the usurper Juan Guaido." Guaido, now in exile, was recognized by dozens of countries as the legitimate winner of elections in 2018 that saw Maduro inaugurated for a second successive term despite widespread fraud claims. Maduro has not confirmed he will seek a third term but is widely expected to do so.
In its ruling against Machado, the court said Guaido's "plot" had led to a "criminal blockade of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as well as the shameless dispossession of the companies and wealth of the Venezuelan people abroad, with the complicity of corrupt governments." Machado replied on X that: "Maduro and his criminal system chose the worst path for them: fraudulent elections. That's not going to happen. Let no one doubt it, this is to the end."
"Today, more than ever, let nothing and no one remove us from the electoral route," Capriles wrote on X after the ruling. "2024 has to be the year of the Venezuelan people." Maduro on Thursday said the Barbados agreement was "mortally wounded" after government authorities claimed to have foiled numerous plots to assassinate him.