MARACAIBO and CARACAS, Venezuela—This Sunday, Venezuelans will go to the polls for a presidential election that will be closely watched around the world. If it is respected, the outcome will in all likelihood result in a victory for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia. But few observers expect President Nicolas Maduro and his repressive regime to leave quietly. Indeed, there are widespread concerns he will try to manipulate the results or, if the margin of Gonzalez’s victory is too great, simply disregard them and rely on the military and security forces to stifle any protests that follow.
By all rights, Maria Corina Machado should be the opposition candidate on Sunday. She overwhelmingly won the opposition’s primary last year and is the galvanizing force behind the unified coalition’s campaign. But she was banned from running by the government, one of many ways in which Maduro has tried to tilt the playing field in his favor.
Machado spoke with Mie Hoejris Dahl, who is in Venezuela to cover the election and its aftermath, about the opposition’s priorities for rebuilding Venezuela after decades of government mismanagement; the tensions it must navigate in balancing justice and accountability with the need for a negotiated transition; and how she and Gonzalez will distribute the responsibilities of governing if he were to take office. The interview was translated from the original Spanish by Dahl and lightly edited for clarity.