Vente Venezuela demands immediate lifting of Machado's ban after ex-judge's coercion claim

A former magistrate's account

Bárbara César Siero, 51, served as a magistrate of the Supreme Court (TSJ) from December 2014 to February 2024. In an extensive video, she says she was coerced into signing the rulings that disqualified María Corina Machado, and that her relatives were used as hostages to force her hand. According to her testimony, two of her brothers and a sister-in-law, all military, were detained by Venezuelan intelligence (DGCIM) in December 2023, and were tortured, disappeared and falsely implicated in a plot known as 'Operación Brazalete Blanco'. The pressure came at a specific moment, when her chamber was due to decide on the political fate of the main opposition candidates. She told AFP on Thursday that it began on 15 December 2023, the deadline for candidates to file appeals against their eligibility or ineligibility before her chamber.

Everything began on 15 December 2023.

Machado, she recalled, was the last person to file an appeal that day, with her lawyer. That same afternoon, her two brothers and sister-in-law were arrested.

Nine rulings without a hearing

She told AFP that the following week nine rulings were brought to her to sign. There was no hearing and the parties were not heard, and she said the procedure had already been violated. She was forced to resign in February 2024. She said she had hoped that signing would bring her relatives back.

I ended up signing, and they kept them.

Vente Venezuela's demand

On Thursday 8 October, Vente Venezuela issued a statement demanding that the disqualification be lifted immediately. The party says the former judge's confession dismantles the ban and that the rulings were issued under a false cloak of legality to exclude the opposition leadership and control electoral results. The statement calls the ban illegal from its origin and says it was ratified only because her relatives were used as hostages.

That disqualification must be lifted IMMEDIATELY.

The party also calls for an urgent investigation into the detentions and the rulings. Henrique Capriles, a former governor, was also disqualified in the rulings the judge says she was forced to sign.

Background to the 2024 election

Machado won the opposition primary in 2023 by a wide margin, but could not stand in the July 2024 presidential election. She designated Edmundo González Urrutia, a diplomat who was then little known, to replace her. Nicolás Maduro was proclaimed the winner, a result the opposition says was fraudulent and which much of the international community did not recognize. Maduro was captured by the US army in January 2026, in an operation justified in part by that contested election. Machado, who received the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, leads the party Vente Venezuela. The party also points to the Barbados Agreement of October 2023, signed by the Maduro government and the opposition to set electoral guarantees, saying these events took place alongside the opposition primaries and after that signing.