Maduro rival leaves hiding to declare: We’re the guardians of Venezuela

Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado, has emerged from hiding to attend a rally in Caracas, defying threats from President Maduro that she should be in jail after a disputed election.
In her first public appearance since the election, which the opposition says it won by a landslide, Machado held the Venezuelan flag above her before addressing a crowd of tens of thousands from an open-top lorry. “We made history!” she said. “What can be more noble than being the guardians of our sovereignty?”
Hundreds of people swarmed towards the lorry and tried to touch her outstretched hand. She then led the crowd singing the national anthem.
The opposition says it has clear evidence that its candidate, the former ambassador Edmundo González, “trounced” the sitting President Maduro in the election, on 28 July. Machado was banned from standing as a candidate, but in a move which appears to have partly wrong-footed the regime, told her supporters to vote for González.
According to the opposition, in a claim based on about 25,000 printed receipts from election machines, González won 67 per cent of the vote, to Maduro’s 30 per cent. On Saturday Machado said the evidence was compiled with the help of thousands of Venezuelans, not all from the formal opposition.
But the government-controlled National Electoral Council has declared what it said is its own “irrefutable result”, affirming that Maduro won the election with 52 per cent, seven points ahead of González. It has not given any detailed breakdown of the result, while claiming the opposition-provided evidence is a “scam”.
The contested vote led to an explosion of protests, some violent, across Venezuela last week, with at least 16 people killed. Symbols of 25 years of socialist rule were targeted, including at least five statues of the late president, Hugo Chávez.
Maduro has since pledged to jail thousands of protesters in two maximum-security prisons.
“I am preparing two prisons that I should have ready in 15 days. They are being repaired,” declared the authoritarian in a state address to the nation. He said 1,000 people had been arrested and that his government intended to “capture” 1,200 more. He alleged that almost 90 per cent of those arrested were “in an advanced state of drug addiction” and said all should be jailed for between 15 and 30 years.
The president’s critics say his exceptionally hardline tone is an attempt to mimic the popular security policy of El Salvador’s President Bukele, who over the past two years has rounded up more than 70,000 suspected gang members and housed many of them in a purpose-built mega jail.
He has gone “full Bukele”, tweeted Benedicte Bull, professor of political science at the University of Oslo, while stressing that in Maduro’s case the target of repression was “young people protesting to defend their legitimate vote”.
Pro-government social media accounts have labelled the operation “tun tun” — or “knock knock” — and have been posting videos of masked security forces making dozens of arrests. Some appear to have been charged with the country’s all-encompassing “law against hate”, which was passed in 2017 and criminalises any action that “incites hatred” against a person or group.
Maduro has been in power since 2013, taking over from Chávez. The last presidential election, in 2018, was widely condemned as fraudulent, mainly because several leading opposition candidates were prohibited from running. The announcement in this election of what appears to be a false result is seen as a far more serious offence.
The United States, Argentina, Uruguay and Panama are among the countries in the region that have formally recognised González as the winner. China, Russia, Iran and Cuba congratulated Maduro within hours of the result being declared.
A team of 17 experts from the Carter Center, who were in the country in the days leading up to and during the election, left abruptly on Tuesday, earlier than originally scheduled. Once back in the US the group issued a scathing initial report on the election, saying it did not meet “international standards of electoral integrity at any of its stages”.
On Friday morning Machado’s party, Vente Venezuela, said its headquarters in Caracas was vandalised and robbed overnight by six hooded men with guns who entered offices and took equipment.
Another opposition party, Voluntad Popular, said one of its national leaders, Roland Carreño, who was released from prison last year as part of a deal between the opposition and the government to pave the way for fair elections, had been re-arrested without explanation.
Maduro has said he is referring the dispute over the result to the country’s supreme court, another institution that his regime controls.
Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, which have all been affected by the Venezuelan migration crisis in recent years, are pushing for Maduro to meet González to try to defuse tensions. Almost eight million people have left the country since Maduro took office in 2013.
Maduro has called González a “fascist” and said he should be jailed, dampening hopes that such a meeting would be feasible.
On Friday, González issued a statement to the country. “Let us seek solutions and not the aggravation of problems. We are willing to look for spaces for dialogue and understanding,” he said.
Maduro has claimed that a group including the US government, President Milei of Argentina and Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X Corp, of conspiring to organise a coup d’état in Venezuela.