CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Thousands of people rallied in the streets of Venezuela’s capital Saturday, waving the national flag and singing the national anthem in support of an opposition candidate they believe won the presidential election by a landslide.
Authorities have declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner of last Sunday’s election but have yet to produce voting tallies to prove he won. Maduro also urged his backers to attend his own “mother of all marches” Saturday elsewhere in Caracas.
The government arrested hundreds of opposition supporters who took to the streets in the days after the disputed poll, and the president and his cadres have threatened to also lock up opposition leader, María Corina Machado, and her hand-picked presidential candidate, Edmundo González.
On Saturday, supporters chanted and sang as Machado arrived at the rally in Caracas. Ecstatic, they crushed around her as she climbed onto a raised platform on a truck to address the crowd.
“After six days of brutal repression, they thought they were going to silence us, intimidate or paralyze us,” she told them. “The presence of every one of you here today represents the best of Venezuela.”
Machado, who has been barred by Maduro’s government from running for office for 15 years, had been in hiding since Tuesday, saying her life and freedom are at risk. Masked assailants ransacked the opposition’s headquarters on Friday, taking documents and vandalizing the space.
On Saturday, she held aloft a Venezuelan flag and promised that the government whose policies forced millions of Venezuelans to leave was finally coming to an end.
“We have overcome all the barriers! We have knocked them all down,” Machado said. “Never has the regime been so weak.”
González, who remains in hiding, was not seen at the event, and when the rally ended, Machado was given a non-descript shirt and whisked away on the back of a motorcycle.
Other left leaning politicians from the southcone are doubting maduro aswell. The most categoric is Boric (chile) whose Embassy was ordered to leave Venezuela because he spoke in favor of venezuela’s people. And from its own political sphere Lula (brazil) and C. Fernández (arg) were reluctant to openly support him. It is said that Lula or Lula’s representatives were forbidden to enter venezuela prior to the ellection as “veedores” because he said something on the lines of “we will make sure that the winner gets honored” (something similar happened with A. Fernández (arg).
Today C Fernández (arg) said “for the good memory of Hugo Chavez, the records should be published” which as usual with this Hag, it’s neither in favour nor against Maduro, but either way, it is defenetely not an open support of Maduro.
Edit: relevant update, Carlotto, a reknown Argentinian and hard left leaning personality (president of Abuelas, a society of grandmothers whose grandsons where abducted during the last military junta) which initially pronounced herself strongly in favour of Maduro has said today (5/7) “it’s clear that he has faked his numbers” folloew by “maybe he is a dictator” or “he will be a dictator” (I really dont get what she means with “será un dictador” so i dont know how to translate it). But for this people, there “aren’t good of bad dictators”.