Maria Corina has announced that she will run against Hugo Chavez.
Caracas legislator Maria Corina Machado announced her candidacy for the primaries on Sunday, two days after the attorney general's office began
investigating an allegation of corruption against the opposition front-runner, Miranda State Governor Henrique Capriles. "Populism must be
combated but not with more populism," Machado told private TV network Globovision, predicting a win by the opposition next year. "A new era will be
born."
in.reuters.com...
Chavez has dared her to run in the past and she is one of the leading opposition opponents.
He has often attacked Maria Corina directly, daring her to run for president against him in 2012. "That little bourgeois woman with a nice
figure," Chavez called her in a recent speech, quoting a popular song. "Go ahead and get into the fray so you can know the fury of the
people."
ecolatino.com...
Although many people may not know her, she is known in Washington. Was even invited to the Whitehouse by Bush. She was founder of the group Sumate. An
opposition group that the US helped to fund. She is fighting charges in Venezuela over the funding.
Another important factor influencing these elections was the multimillion-dollar support the opposition campaign received from US agencies, such
as USAID, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI). These agencies,
backing the opposition to Chavez for years, achieved a major result; their most loyal agents won top seats in parliament.
noliesradio.org...
Venezuela said that the funds broke Venezuela law and claims that the US was interfering by providing the funds. Marina Corina has denied the charges
but admitted she took money to help monitor human rights. A wikileak cable showed the following
The latest Wikileaks releases include cables sent from the US Embassy in Caracas to the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, National
Security Council, and other US entities, indicating requests for additional US government funding for opposition groups in Venezuela. The cables
corroborate documents previously obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that evidence ongoing US funding to support anti-Chavez
groups and political parties in Venezuela actively working to destabilize and overthrow the South American government.
venezuelanalysis.com...
The US has a history with Chavez and the most recent is trying to tie Chavez to international drug cartels. Venezuela and the US recently competed for
the extradition of drugpin Walid Makled Garcia who was captured in Columbia. Walid said he had proof that Chavez was involved in drugs as well as
other people in his administration. US lost the extradition and Walid was turned over to Venezuela.
blog.heritage.org...’s-latin-america-policy/
Will be interesting to see how much support Maria Corina gets from the US in her battle to defeat Chavez and what the US gets in return from Venezuela
if she wins.
edit on 26-7-2011 by jam321 because: I hate computer crashes.