The scene captured on YouTube is a must-see of 25 years of Chavismo. Hugo Chávez, already besieged by cancer, lashes out at the opposition in the National Assembly with an insufferable revolutionary homily about the state of the nation according to his particular perspective. Surrounded by aggressive deputies, the opposition Maria Corina Machado rises with poise and interrupts the almighty supreme commander. Tremendous audacity, unthinkable then, even for her, the legislator with the most votes in the 2010 elections.
Between boos and laughter, Machado reproaches him that “we have had eight hours listening to him describe a very distant country that all Venezuelan women and mothers are feeling. Decent Venezuela does not want to embrace communism, wants respect for private property, solidarity and justice. “He has dedicated himself to expropriating, which is stealing,” he charged to the astonishment of the Bolivarian leader himself.
This determination and energy of the conservative leader, who defines herself as a democratic liberal, added to her perseverance, almost always dressed in white, has led her more than a decade later to star in a historic milestone with his huge victory in the opposition primary elections. And he is not the only one, since she is also the woman with the greatest political influence in the history of the oil country. The “mother” of Venezuelans, with the same spirit of the slogan from years ago, the “Mary is coming!” that spread throughout the country.
Her radical stance against the revolution has elevated her in the imagination of her compatriots, tired of the drift and failures of traditional parties. María Corina is no longer a politician, since Sunday she has become in the hope of a country subjugated by the dictatorship.
Machado (56 years old) knows very well what it is an expropriation. Graduated from Yale and lifelong rich, the unitary opposition candidate is the daughter of an important iron and aluminum businessman, who died this year, which reinforces the title of iron lady, beyond her initial ideological resemblance to the British Margaret Thatcher. At the end of the 19th century, the Machado Zuloagas created La Electricidad de Caracas, a company in charge of supplying energy to the capital, finally nationalized by Chávez.