Several thousand opposition supporters in Venezuela, led by their leader, demonstrated today in Caracas, challenging the re-election of Nicolas Maduro to the presidency.
Maria Corina Machado, the leader of the opposition, who said she was “hiding” and feared for her life, appeared at noon in a truck with the slogan “Venezuela won”. She was greeted by thousands of her supporters who shouted “Freedom”.
Machado was not a candidate in the July 28 presidential election because authorities deemed her ineligible and rejected her candidacy. He was replaced at the last minute by Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia who was not present today at the demonstration which was organized in a suburb of the capital, under the discreet presence of the police.
🇻🇪 | María Corina Machado spoke to a crowd in Caracas. On another day of protests in the capital of Venezuela.pic.twitter.com/4ijRXAPsOh
— The Daily Post (@ElPosteoDiario) August 3, 2024
“We are not terrorists. We will make it to the end,” read the message on a placard held by Jezi Ramos, 36, a cook and mother of one daughter. “This dictatorship will fall,” he assured.
Fears of repression in Venezuela
The memory of the 2017 crackdown, when around 100 people were killed, and the mobilization of the security apparatus after the elections, however, cause palpable fear. 55-year-old Sonel Molina, whose two children fled to Peru, said that they are “worried” about her and advised her to leave the country, but she does not want to. He went to the demonstration “to defend democracy and the vote”, as he said.
🔵 #VENEZUELA #NOW 🇻🇪 :
Crowd accompanies Maria Corina Machado in Las Mercedes, Caracas.
Protests against Maduro’s fraud are taking place across the country. SPREAD THE WORLD!@all @stand out #spread #share #urgent #now . pic.twitter.com/cOSFMsqbjD
— Los del Sur News (@LdelSurNoticias) August 3, 2024
In the rest of the city, the streets were virtually deserted.
Maduro’s supporters, however, plan to start from downtown Caracas later and reach the presidential palace to celebrate his election victory.
On Friday, the electoral authority confirmed, as expected, Maduro’s re-election for a third term until 2031. According to the results it announced, without providing detailed information, Maduro got 52% and Urrutia 43%.
“We won!” replied Maria Korina Machado through the X platform. “We have evidence and the world already knows it,” added Machado, who called the official results “a farce.”
According to the opposition count, Urrutia received 67%.
At least 11 civilians and one soldier were killed and more than 1,200 people were arrested in the protests that took place almost everywhere in the country in the two days after the election. The opposition, which denounces “violent repression”, speaks of 20 dead and 11 missing.
Source of RES-EMP
#Venezuela #Thousands #opposition #supporters #questioned #Maduros #victory #Video
