Venezuela's exiled opposition leader, María Corina Machado, said in an extensive interview this week that Washington's new oil partner in Venezuela, Alejandro Betancourt, was responsible for "obscene corruption" and would not be a viable business associate if she took power. It was the first time Ms. Machado had publicly weighed in on Mr. Betancourt, who recently entered a lucrative deal with the Trump administration to control roughly a fifth of Venezuela's oil reserves.
The agreement placed Mr. Betancourt, a wealthy businessman targeted by corruption investigations, at the heart of Washington's Venezuela strategy. According to an independent Venezuelan energy auditor, he made a fortune through no-bid contracts for power plants that involved overbilling state entities. Mr. Betancourt's spokeswoman, Sara Chouraqui, has said he has never been charged with a crime in any jurisdiction.
The U.S. government has kept Ms. Machado at a distance for months, passing her over in favor of Delcy Rodríguez, an autocratic leader, to lead the country in January. Ms. Machado, a former legislator who has led the opposition for three years, has not been allowed back into her country, even as Washington exerts enormous control over Venezuela. In an interview held in Panama, where she is temporarily staying, she said the United States had not included her in current negotiations between the Venezuelan government and a different opposition faction taking place in Caracas.
A State Department spokeswoman said Ms. Machado's party had been invited to the Caracas talks and that "Maria Corina has every right to enter her country whenever she wants to return." Ms. Machado vowed to return "sooner than you would expect," and a Bloomberg News poll found 52 percent of respondents would support her in a presidential election, compared with 19 percent for Ms. Rodríguez.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing