Venezuela Crisis: Nobel Laureate Maria Machado Praises Trump For Toppling 'Enemy' Maduro, Vows To Return

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Maria Corina Machado, the main opposition leader in Venezuela and Nobel Peace Prize winner, has praised United States President Donald Trump for toppling the government of Nicholas Maduro as she vowed to return to her country. She also asserted that her party had won the 2024 elections and expressed confidence that it would secure 90 per cent of the votes in a free and fair poll.

“I'm planning to go back to Venezuela as soon as possible,” Maria Corina Machado said, adding,“We believe that this transition should move forward. We won an election (in 2024) by a landslide under fraudulent conditions. In free and fair elections, we will win over 90% of the votes.”

Maria Corina Machado, who was in hiding, had escaped Venezuela in October to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

As she praises Trump for toppling the Maduro government, the US president has appeared to hope to work with interim President Delcy Rodriguez. He also recently mentioned that Venezuela needed fixing first, before any election.

“We have to fix the country first. You can't have an election. There's no way the people could even vote,” Trump told NBC.

The opposition, some international observers and many US allies say the opposition was cheated of victory in the 2024 election, from which Machado was banned and an ally stood instead, but Trump has said she lacks support in Venezuela.

Delcy Rodriguez, who Trump hopes to now work with, has been an ally of Maduro.

Speaking of the acting President of Venezuela, Machado said,“Delcy Rodriguez, as you know, is one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narco-trafficking. She's a main ally and liaison of Russia, China, Iran, certainly not an individual who could be trusted by international investors and she's really rejected by the Venezuelan people.”

On Trump, she said,“He has proven to the world what he means. January 3rd will go down in history as the day justice defeated a tyranny.” Thanking him for his“courageous vision and the historical actions he has taken against this narco-terrorist regime,” she said,“It's a huge step towards a democratic transition.”

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