FRANCE 24 spoke to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was supposed to run as the opposition's candidate for president in the July 28 election, before she was barred from doing so. Instead, veteran diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia ran in her place. According to independent exit polling voting machine receipts, Gonzalez Urrutia defeated President Nicolas Maduro. Yet the incumbent was proclaimed the winner of the vote. "Every day that goes by, Maduro is weaker and weaker, and we are going to prevail [in] our fight," Machado declared.
"I think that everybody knows that Edmundo Gonzalez won", Machado told FRANCE 24 from an undisclosed location in Venezuela.
"Everybody knows inside and outside Venezuela that it was by a landslide and that he is the president elect," she added.
Gonzalez Urrutia, however, decided to leave Venezuela for Spain on September 8.
"The regime certainly threatened him with his life and his family," Machado said.
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"Every day that goes by, Nicolas Maduro is more and more isolated. He's not only a dictator that pretends to rob an election, but he's a criminal," the opposition leader said.
"Maduro won't go until the cost of staying in power is higher than the cost of leaving power," Machado noted, calling for more "pressure" on the regime.
"In the end, I believe Maduro will understand that his best option is to sit down and negotiate an orderly and peaceful transition in Venezuela," she declared.
