Venezuela opposition leader emerges from hiding place at protest amid crackdown
Unlock Digest Editor for free
FT Editor Roula Khalaf picks her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado emerged from hiding on Saturday to join an anti-government protest in Caracas, despite a violent crackdown on dissent by the socialist government of Nicolás Maduro.
Machado, who has not been seen in public since Wednesday after Maduro and members of his inner circle publicly called for her imprisonment, waved a Venezuelan flag from the top of a pickup truck to the cheers of thousands of supporters.
“We have never been stronger than we are today, never,” Machado said. “The presence of all of you on the streets shows the world our great strength and determination to reach the ultimate goal.”
Protests erupted in the South American country on Monday after Maduro claimed victory in the presidential election by seven points over opposition candidate Edmundo González. The National Electoral Council, controlled by Maduro allies, has refused to release details of the results.
The opposition declared González the real winner with 7.1 million votes to Maduro’s 3.2 million, and presented thousands of receipts from polling stations as evidence. The United States on Thursday recognize Gonzalez was the winner, a move followed by Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Panama. Maduro’s victory was recognized by key allies China, Russia, Iran and Cuba, among others.
González, a retired diplomat, stood in for the charismatic Machado, who was barred from running in January, months after she won the primary by a landslide. The Carter Center, a U.S. nonprofit and the only independent body in the country, Venezuela to assess the election, saying the vote “failed to meet international standards of electoral integrity at any stage.”
Maduro has moved the election dispute to the supreme courtgovernment-controlled. On Friday, González failed to appear at a hearing to which all 10 candidates in the election were summoned.
On Saturday, supporters from poor and middle-class neighborhoods gathered in the wealthy Las Mercedes neighborhood to see Machado, seemingly undeterred by the crackdown on sporadic protests that began in the capital’s impoverished neighborhoods on Monday.
Since Monday, at least 19 people have been killed, according to human rights group Provea, and Maduro claims 2,000 have been arrested. Machado wrote in U.S. media on Thursday that she went into hiding because she feared she was about to be arrested. Opposition campaign offices were broken into and vandalized early Friday morning.
“We are all scared, but what scares me more is to continue to be subjected to this tyranny,” said Luis Guersi, a 43-year-old engineer at Saturday’s protest.
Colonia Pérez, 34, a street vendor and mother of three, said she joined “for the future of my children”.
Maduro, who has presided over an economic crisis, deepening repression and an exodus of 7.7 million Venezuelans since succeeding the late populist president Hugo Chávez in 2013, has branded protests against his self-declared re-election as a Washington-backed “fascist” coup attempt.
“The far right means hatred, revenge, foreign interference and war,” he told supporters and public sector workers at a rival rally in central Caracas on Saturday.
Earlier on Saturday morning, US Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols said cases of arbitrary arrests, destruction of property by opposition officers and violence against peaceful protesters would be referred to the UN human rights body.
“After seeing the will of the Venezuelan people through the ballots, Maduro and his representatives resorted to repression,” Nichols wrote on X. “These actions are unacceptable and demonstrate Maduro’s reliance on fear to cling to power.”
At Machado’s rally, supporters said they would continue to demonstrate in support of González’s victory.
“We want a free Venezuela,” said Deysi Barrios, a journalist whose family fled the country. “If we don’t get rid of this dictatorship now, we never will.”
