Evita meets Thatcher: the woman fighting Venezuela’s autocracy

00:00 05:53

Paola Romero has narrated this article for you to listen to.

Maria Corina Machado is showing the world how opposition politicians can fight an autocrat. When President Nicolas Maduro tried to thwart her campaign by banning her from taking domestic flights, she drove between her rallies on a motorcycle. When he then banned her from running as a candidate in Venezuela’s presidential election, which takes place this Sunday, she found a retired diplomat to run as her proxy. Without even being on the ballot, she may bring down Maduro’s socialist regime.

Machado mixes the crowd-pulling allure of Evita Peron with the politics of Margaret Thatcher

Venezuela is used to left-wing populists whipping up crowds by railing against America, the rich and capitalism in general. Machado is their equal and opposite. She’s a stylish 56-year-old who mixes the crowd-pulling allure of Evita Peron with the politics of Margaret Thatcher. Her agenda is one of reconciliation, market reform and a pledge to end the Chavez/Maduro experiment. Instead of offering subsidies and welfare, she promises free-market reforms, the freedom to work, to be independent and to own property. ‘Here, we decree the end of socialism!’ she declared at one rally, to rapturous applause.

Machado may be a classical liberal, but she has shown the courage of a revolutionary. More than 100 of her staffers have been arrested by Maduro’s regime. Her remaining team are working under diplomatic protection in the Argentinian embassy. Anyone who helps her on the campaign trail by giving her food, accommodation or transport risks being arrested. But no one seems to care. Every attempt to stop her only seems to have strengthened her appeal and turned her campaign into a political odyssey.