Maria Corina Machado, Venezuela opposition candidate turned cheerleader-in-chief

By Vivian Sequera

CARACAS (Reuters) - Laughter, tears, and requests for help often greet Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado as she tours the country urging voters to back change in the upcoming July 28 presidential election.

But Machado - despite her popularity and her resounding two million vote victory in the opposition's primary - is not the opposition candidate challenging President Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuela's top court in January upheld a ban on Machado, a 56-year-old industrial engineer, that prevents her from holding public office.

She has instead thrown herself into campaigning for her replacement, former ambassador Edmundo Gonzalez, drawing crowds that sometimes number in the thousands, according to attendees and images captured by media.

Machado's followers gather around the pick-up truck that serves as her rally stage to hear her inveigh against Maduro's government and urge people to vote for Gonzalez, 74.

For a population tired of economic struggle, stricken public services, and the mass exodus of desperate migrants - Machado and Gonzalez have spoken at length of the need to reunite families - the opposition's emotional rhetoric could drum up support even without touching on specific policy ideas.

"When there is a rally what I see is joy, excitement, because the crowd hopes the country will change," said Darwin Mendoza, 27, a delivery driver in Aragua state.

Some of her rivals have accused Machado of egotism and her mother has called her "stubborn." But she rarely talks about herself during speeches, instead painting the election as "a spiritual struggle of good versus evil."

"Our strength is in redemption and unity. This is what makes it so powerful," Machado said in a post on X earlier this month.

She has called Gonzalez a "decent and honest man."

Machado has expressed support for privatizing state-owned energy behemoth PDVSA and other public companies, in addition to building a welfare program to help the country's poorest.

Several members of Machado's inner circle have been arrested or are facing warrants.

Her head of security was arrested last week and subsequently freed, while six members of her team took refuge in Argentina's embassy after prosecutors issued warrants for their arrest in March.

Machado's upper-class roots - her father was a renowned businessman at a steel manufacturer - have prompted ridicule and insults from socialist ruling party officials, who accuse her of being a "fascist oligarch" who despises the poor.

Machado, who describes herself as a liberal opposed to discrimination, has in turn accused Maduro's government of being a "criminal mafia."

(Reporting by Vivian Sequera in Caracas, additional reporting by Tibisay Romero in Valencia, Venezuela; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

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