Caracas.- Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said Thursday that she is being held in custody out of fear for her life and freedom, in the face of escalating attacks by Venezuelan authorities who have called for her arrest and accused her of being a criminal and a fascist, following persistent complaints from the opposition about the lack of transparency in the results of the elections that gave victory to Nicolás Maduro.
Machado and opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, who claim to have won Sunday’s election despite the National Electoral Council’s announcement, made their last public appearance on Tuesday at a mass rally with supporters on the streets of Caracas. They have not been seen since.
The opposition leader signed an opinion piece in the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal on Thursday in which she claims to have taken refuge out of fear. “I write this from hiding, fearing for my life, my freedom and that of my compatriots from the dictatorship led by Nicolás Maduro,” the text said.
The opposition leader’s press office confirmed that she is under protection, but did not offer further details.
The day before, President Nicolás Maduro accused her in a press conference of promoting the protests that broke out after the National Electoral Council declared Maduro’s victory in the elections, accused her of being a “terrorist” and asked her to “have fair justice.”
In the previous days, in response to opposition demands and pressure from several countries and international organizations over the lack of transparency in the election results, Maduro accused her of being a criminal and a fascist. Other Venezuelan authorities also urged that both Machado and candidate Gonzalez be arrested.
“Mrs. Machado, where is she? Why is she hiding? Why doesn’t she face up to so much abuse, so much violence?” the Venezuelan president said at a press conference on Wednesday.
AP asked Gonzalez’s team for a reaction to Machado’s remarks but there was no immediate comment. Several of his campaign aides have been arrested in the past few months, most recently opposition leader Freddy Superlano on Tuesday after the election.
Shortly after, Machado posted a video on her X account, formerly Twitter, in which she called for a mobilization on Saturday morning “in all the cities of Venezuela.”
More than 1,200 people have been arrested and another 1,000 are being sought in protests that began Monday in Caracas and other parts of the country, Maduro said. At least 11 people have died, according to the Foro Penal organization.
The protests were joined by numerous statements from countries on the American continent, such as the United States, Argentina and Chile, as well as entities such as the Organization of American States and observers such as the Carter Center, to demand that the Venezuelan authorities publish the voting data broken down by table and that they allow for independent verification of the results.
Maduro, who was seeking re-election for a third six-year term, was declared the winner on Sunday by the National Electoral Council without details of the vote being disclosed. The CNE website has been down since at least Monday.
Under pressure, President Maduro asked the country’s Supreme Court on Wednesday to conduct an expert review of the electoral process. The court announced on Thursday that it had accepted the request and called the president, opposition candidate González and the other candidates to testify on Friday afternoon.
Calls for greater transparency also came from allied countries such as Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, which also made diplomatic efforts to convince Maduro to release electoral information.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro insisted on Thursday that he will not interfere in the results of Venezuela’s presidential elections, which are under numerous international questions.
“It is not a foreign government that should decide who is the president of Venezuela,” Petro posted on his account on the social network X, formerly Twitter.
The statement was made in response to Machado, who has denounced alleged fraud in the elections, disputing the figures released by the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) —controlled by the ruling party— which give Nicolás Maduro the victory with 51% of the votes compared to 44% for the opposition candidate Edmundo González.
For Petro, a close ally of Maduro, it is up to Venezuelans to reach a “political agreement to end the violence in their country and establish a transparent way to advance a vote count with guarantees for all.”
Machado responded to the Colombian president on the same social network saying that “the people of Venezuela have already decided” and urged him to consult more than 80% of the electoral records that the opposition claims to have in its possession and according to which González would have won the elections.
Upon coming to power two years ago, Petro reestablished diplomatic relations with Venezuela, recognizing Maduro as the legitimate president of that country. His predecessor, Iván Duque (2018-2022), was a harsh critic of Maduro and joined the group of countries that recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as president.
Colombia abstained from voting yesterday on a resolution from the Organization of American States (OAS) that urged Venezuela’s electoral authority to immediately publish the results of the vote. It argued that it does not consider the OAS to be the appropriate forum to address issues related to Venezuela, a country that unilaterally withdrew from the organization.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric said Thursday afternoon that he had spoken with Petro “due to the tense situation we are experiencing at a regional level” as a result of the situation in Venezuela, he posted in a message on X. And he repeated the requests for respect for sovereignty and transparency in the results.
The presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia are scheduled to hold a call on Thursday to discuss the situation in Venezuela, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced in the morning.
“We are going to discuss the positions that exist in the case of Venezuela,” he said. “We have acted prudently so as not to get involved in an issue that fundamentally concerns Venezuelans.”
López Obrador reiterated that what Mexico is proposing is “first, that there be no violence; second, that the will of the Venezuelan people be respected; third, that evidence and the electoral results be presented; and fourth, that there be no interference.”
According to the Mexican, who once again attacked the OAS, the Venezuelan authorities must be trusted. Maduro has already stated that “they will hand over the records” and will have to prove whether, as he said, there was sabotage, but now it is up to the electoral court “to listen to everyone, compile all the records” and make a decision, added López Obrador.
Bolivia also spoke out on Thursday on the situation in Venezuela, with a message of support for the government. It “strongly rejected the coup attempts” against President Nicolás Maduro and “the plans to replace the will of the Venezuelan people democratically expressed at the polls last Sunday, July 28,” according to a statement from the Bolivian Foreign Ministry.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said Thursday that he fears that given the current situation in Venezuela, the flow of migrants from that country crossing the Darién jungle on the border with Colombia will increase.
“We have a migration problem without a doubt. 66% of the problem in Darien are Venezuelans. We hope that it does not increase (migration), but logic indicates that it could increase,” Mulino said at a press conference.
Since 2014, some 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), fleeing the economic crisis and social deterioration. This flow has increased in recent years.
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