Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado aligns with Spain's right-wing parties on economic issues but diverges on social topics like abortion. She declined to meet with Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez during her visit to Spain.
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Madrid, Spain – Venezuela’s opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is aligned with Spain’s main right-wing party on its economic visions, but they are divided by social issues such as abortion, analysts say.
On a visit to Spain this weekend, Machado chose to snub an invitation to meet Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and the left-wing coalition government officials.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner said she had chosen not to meet Sanchez because he was hosting a summit of left-wing leaders from Latin America in Barcelona.
“What has transpired in the past few hours at the meeting held in Barcelona with various political leaders from different countries is proof that such a meeting was not advisable,” Machado told a meeting in Madrid on Saturday.
Instead, she held a series of meetings with leaders from the opposition conservative People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox party.
Machado received a rapturous welcome from Alberto Nunez Feijoo, the PP party leader and Venezuelan emigres in Madrid, on Friday.
On Saturday, the Venezuelan opposition leader met Isabel Diaz Ayuso, the populist conservative Madrid regional leader, one of Sanchez’s fiercest critics and a possible rival to Feijoo.
Ayuso presented Madrid’s gold medal to Machado, while Madrid’s Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida – also of the PP – handed her the keys to the city before a rally with Venezuelan supporters.
Machado also met Santiago Abascal, the leader of Vox, in the Spanish capital.
Feijoo praised how Machado had championed freedom even at the cost of going into hiding in Venezuela away from her family.
“Spain knows well the value of freedom; it cost us dearly to obtain it. The generations of our parents and grandparents know what it is to live without freedom. That is why we cannot look the other way,” Feijoo said.
Despite the cordial welcome, there are significant differences between Machado and Feijoo, commentators said.
A liberal conservative, who has said she is an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, Machado has been dubbed Venezuela’s “Iron Lady”.
She moved from the right politically to the centre-ground during the 2024 presidential campaign to attract voters in the middle ground.
As a conservative, Machado heads a Venezuelan opposition that is split and which also contains more liberal factions.
In contrast, Feijoo heads a well-organised conservative political party, which has only recently suffered divisions after the formation of the hard-right Vox party in 2013, analysts said.
Carlos Malamud, an expert on Latin America at the Real Elcano Institute, a think tank in Madrid, said the structure of both opposition groups was different.
Maria Corina Machado refused to meet with Pedro Sanchez because he was hosting a summit of left-wing leaders from Latin America, which she deemed inadvisable.
Maria Corina Machado met with leaders from Spain's conservative People's Party (PP) and the far-right Vox party during her visit.
Maria Corina Machado and Spain's right-wing parties are divided on social issues such as abortion, despite their alignment on economic visions.
Machado's visit to Spain highlights her strategic alignment with right-wing parties in Europe while distancing herself from leftist leaders, reflecting broader political dynamics.
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“Machado is the leader of a small, disorganised opposition, while Feijoo is the head of the PP, which is a well-organised national political party,” he told Al Jazeera.
Malamud said Machado did not demonstrate the traits of a would-be Venezuelan president by refusing to see Sanchez.
“If Machado wants to be the president of Venezuela next year, she needs to be prepared to meet the head of the Spanish government, whoever that may be,” he explained.
“Perhaps the Venezuelan opposition sees the Spanish Socialist Party as being allied to (former Spanish prime minister) Jose Rodriguez Zapatero.”
Zapatero has played a controversial role in acting as a mediator between Spain and the government of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was abducted by the United States in January.
Maduro faces charges of narcoterrorism, conspiracy to commit narcoterrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption, which he denies.
Malamud said one factor which unites Machado and Feijoo is that they came from political systems which suffered from polarisation.
“Venezuelan politics is the same as Cuban politics, or like Spanish. They all suffer from the same degree of polarisation,” he added.
Ana Ayuso, an investigator in Latin American affairs at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, said Machado shared the liberal economic theories of Feijoo, but they differed on social issues.
“She is in favour of freedom of trade and a small state, so she is quite liberal on economic affairs like Feijoo,” Ayuso told Al Jazeera.
“She is also closer to Isabel Diaz Ayuso in terms of economics, in terms of free trade and the participation of the state.”
“However, she is more conservative when it comes to social issues. Machado is against abortion, and religious affairs are important to her. She is close to the [Roman] Catholic Church. Feijoo supports the right to abortion.”
In an interview in 2024 with Spanish newspaper El Pais, Machado said she was against abortion but in favour of changing the law in Venezuela to allow abortion in cases of rape.
At present, the law in Venezuela allows abortion only when there is a risk to the life of the mother or child. Otherwise, it is illegal and can carry a jail sentence of up to two years.
“Machado does not have any similarities with Vox. Venezuela does not have a problem with immigration. Emigration is the problem,” added Ayuso.
She said the Venezuelan opposition leader had initially been a staunch supporter of US President Donald Trump, but he had shunned her in support of Delcy Rodriguez, the acting Venezuelan president.
Machado was now closer to Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, who supported her cause within the MAGA movement, she added.