http://whatsnextvenezuela.com/news/meet-the-cadidates-maria-corina-machado/

Today, as part of What’s Next Venezuela’s “Meet the Candidates” series, we introduce Venezuelan opposition candidate María Corina Machado.

María Corina Machado is running as an independent candidate in the February primaries, with the hope of facing President Hugo Chávez in the October general elections and becoming the first woman president of Venezuela.

Early on in her career, Machado focused on Venezuela’s youth, successfully co-founding ATENEA, an organization that assists orphaned and abandoned children. She also served as chair of a similar organization called Oportunitas Foundation, which focuses on helping Venezuela’s youth.

Years later, her focus shifted to keeping a close watch on the government. In fact, Machado co-founded in 2002 the political watchdog organization known as Súmate. The organization’s main goal is to promote and defend the political rights of every Venezuelan. Under her leadership, Súmate gained around 30,000 supporters and received international praise.

Two years later, Machado and fellow Súmate members played an active role in collecting signatures from nearly a quarter of the Venezuelan electorate in support of a referendum to recall President Chávez. The National Endowment for Democracy provided financial support for the group’s efforts, which followed constitutional guidelines. Mr. Chávez responded by charging Machado with conspiracy and treason. He also banned her from leaving the country for a period of three years.

After resigning from Súmate in 2010, Machado was elected to represent the state of Miranda in the Venezuelan National Assembly, winning her seat with more votes than any other candidate during the elections.

Machado has remained a vocal opponent of Chávez’s human rights violations and abuses of power, particularly as they relate to expropriations. Her most defiant criticism of Chávez’s expropriation policies came during the President’s nine-and-a-half hour State of the Union address earlier this month, when Machado interrupted Chávez to accuse him of lying to the Venezuelan people about food sovereignty and expropriations. She compared expropriation to theft and demanded that Chávez, “tell the truth to Venezuela.”

As Machado heads into the February primary elections, she has established a platform focused on:

- Reducing the power of the “oficialismo” and ridding the government of corruption;
- Enacting “popular capitalism,” aimed at providing Venezuelans equal opportunity, justice and truth;
- Decentralizing power and reestablishing the power of local governments, which have been weakened under Chávez;
- Re-instating the “juntas parroquiales,” an initiative that encourages private industry and religious organizations to be responsible for providing social services to the Venezuelan people;
- Increasing accountability and transparency of the government, particularly with regard to national resources and exports;
- Halting attacks on human rights by ending censorship of the national media and the unlawful takeovers of private property by the Chávez regime.