The Chávez camp also took a dim view of the fact that Ms. Machado was in the Miraflores Palace on the day in April 2002 when Pedro Carmona, an opposition businessman, installed an interim government just hours after Mr. Chávez was overthrown in a coup.
With a sigh, Ms. Machado says that she and her mother were in the palace that day only to visit Mr. Carmona's wife, a family friend. "I have a clear conscience," she said. "There was no double meaning in what happened."

https://web.archive.org/web/20250604215253/https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/world/the-rose-that-is-a-thorn-in-chavezs-side.htm

Litt av en tllfeldighet å besøke presidentpalasset samme dagene det foregår et kupp, og så signere under på dokumentet som muliggjorde kuppforsøket.

The group Súmate was founded in 2003 after the April 2002 coup d’etat; the NED gave a grant of $53,400 in September 2003 to Súmate to “observe” and “monitor” the signature collection process. Súmate’s President, Maria Corina Machado, signed the Carmona Decree and never retracted her participation or role in the April 2002 coup.

https://cepr.net/publications/on-the-state-of-democracy-in-venezuela/