Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado stated this Monday (13) that she will only be able to travel to Oslo, the capital of Norway, to receive the Nobel Peace Prize she won, when dictator Nicolás Maduro leaves power in Venezuela.
María Corina, who is hiding in Venezuela due to threats against her life, explained that she cannot leave the country as long as the Chavista regime remains in charge.
“As long as Maduro is in power, I cannot leave the place where I hide because there are direct threats against my life,” he said in an interview with the Norwegian newspaper Today’s Naering Lifereported by the NTB agency. “Venezuela must be free”, declared the opposition leader.
María Corina highlighted that she currently lives under constant surveillance and finds strength in popular support.
“I learned to live day to day, and the Venezuelan people are doing everything in their hands for their future,” he said.
Last Friday (10), the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the award to the opposition leader “for her tireless struggle in promoting the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people and for her battle to achieve a fair and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy”.
In a new statement this Sunday (12), María Corina highlighted that international recognition represents a symbolic blow to the Chavista regime.
“It has a very important impact both on Venezuelans and on the regime itself,” he said, adding that Maduro’s government “is absolutely isolated and its days are numbered.”
Since last year, the opposition has been denouncing fraud in the July 28 presidential elections, when the leader of the Democratic Unitary Platform, Edmundo González Urrutia – now in exile in Spain – won the election, according to the opposition. The National Electoral Council, controlled by Maduro’s allies, declared the Chavista re-elected, generating international protests and denunciations.
Machado is considered the main voice of the democratic opposition in Venezuela and, now, the first Venezuelan to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
