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Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was briefly arrested on Thursday after emerging from hiding to rally opposition protesters in Caracas the day before authoritarian president Nicolás Maduro was resulting from be sworn in for a 3rd term.
Machado, 57, was “violently intercepted” by government operatives who pushed her from her motorcycle and fired shots as she left the march, in response to posts on X from her party Vente Venezuela. An opposition figure near Machado later told the Financial Times that she had been released by her captors, rescued by supporters and brought to a secure place.
“They didn’t know what to do along with her,” the opposition figure said of the federal government. He added that Machado’s condition was not known but she was not believed to be seriously hurt.
A brief video broadcast on state-owned news channel Telesur showed Machado sitting by the side of a street wearing a hooded rain jacket saying she was “well, secure”. Its authenticity couldn’t immediately be confirmed. Shortly after Machado’s release, Vente Venezuela said in a post that “while kidnapped she was forced to film various videos”.
Thursday’s confrontation dramatically raises the stakes between the Maduro government and the international community. Maduro’s claim of victory in an election last July has not been recognised by the US and plenty of Latin American nations, who say the outcomes were rigged and recognise Machado ally Edmundo González as the actual victor.
Machado has been in hiding since August. She appeared before supporters within the Chacao neighbourhood in east Caracas on Thursday, who were heeding her call for nationwide protests against Maduro, a revolutionary socialist who has governed the oil-rich South American nation since 2013.
“They wanted us to fight one another, but Venezuela is united,” Machado told the group from atop a truck as she waved a Venezuelan flag, moments before her arrest. “We will not be afraid.”
Maduro was declared the winner within the election by the national electoral council, which is controlled by his allies, without providing any details of the voting. The opposition produced hundreds of official election tally sheets from polling stations to indicate that González was the true victor by a margin of greater than two to 1.
González, who left Venezuela in September to enter exile, is on a tour of the Americas to rally support. On Monday he met US President Joe Biden and on Thursday he was within the Dominican Republic, amid reports he would attempt to fly into Venezuela on Friday with a bunch of former Latin American presidents to be sworn in.
Maduro’s government has said González might be arrested if he sets foot in Venezuela. It has distributed “Wanted” posters naming him and the previous presidents and offering a reward for his or her capture — a part of a crackdown on dissent that features police checkpoints across the capital and a beefed-up police presence.
Greater than a dozen opposition figures and rights activists have been arrested or kidnapped this week. On Tuesday evening, distinguished human rights lawyer Carlos Correa and opposition politician Enrique Márquez were detained. Earlier that day, González’s son-in-law Rafael Tudares was abducted from his automobile by hooded assailants while dropping off González’s two grandchildren in school, and Machado said her elderly moms’ home had been surrounded by “regime agents”.
The White House said in an announcement: “We now have and proceed to sentence publicly Maduro and his representatives for attempting to intimidate Venezuela’s democratic opposition.”
