Caracas – The President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, was to be sworn in for a third term on Friday despite the complaint that caused thousands of people to protest the day before the event. Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who came out of hiding to lead a protest in Caracas on Thursday, was arrested shortly after the meeting according to her team, who has also criticized the international community for allegedly stealing Maduro’s vote and stealing from critics.
The government denied arresting Machado, but Maduro’s critic did he was arrested by the security guards the team behind the anti-government rally in Caracas, his team said. Witnesses reported gunshots when his motorcycle was forced off the road.
Trump, other world leaders react to Machado’s arrest
In a social media post, President-elect Donald Trump called Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia – the man who replaced him in the election and is widely accepted to have beaten Maduro in the July 28 election – as “liberation fighters.”
“They should not be harmed, and they MUST stay safe and alive,” he wrote on his Truth Social network.
During his first term in office, Trump intensified punitive measures against the Maduro government for anti-democratic actions. The sanctions have been partially lifted, then reinstated, by President Biden, and are likely to be tougher during Trump’s next term, which begins in just 10 days.
PEDRO MATTEY/AFP/Getty
Ecuador condemned what it called “Maduro’s dictatorship,” while Spain expressed its “absolute condemnation” of Machado’s arrest, albeit a brief one.
Colombia, whose leftist President Gustavo Petro is historically an ally of Maduro, also condemned the “systematic torture” of Machado, 57.
Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni on Friday condemned “another unacceptable act of repression” in Venezuela, without specifically mentioning Machado.
“The news coming out of Venezuela represents another unacceptable act of repression by the Maduro regime, which we don’t know won the elections,” Meloni said in a statement. “We intend to continue working for a democratic and peaceful transition. The legitimate aspirations for freedom and democracy of the Venezuelan people must finally be realized.”
Citing an “international conspiracy to disrupt the peace of the Venezuelan people,” Freddy Bernal, the border governor of Tachira state, said the border with Colombia was closed on Friday and would be reopened on Monday.
Opposition leader Machado: “We are not afraid”
Earlier, Machado made a defiant speech to thousands of supporters in the center of Caracas, sending a message to the government: “We are not afraid.”
Gaby Oraa/REUTERS
There was also a demonstration in Paris attended by Machado’s daughter Ana Corina Sosa and a large number of supporters.
Government opponents reported a new wave of repression ahead of Maduro’s inauguration, including the arrest of another opposition presidential candidate, the head of a press freedom NGO, and Gonzalez Urrutia’s son-in-law.
The United Nations expressed concern this week over reports of arbitrary arrests and intimidation.
More than 2,400 people were arrested, 28 died and around 200 were injured in the protests that met Maduro’s bid to win last year’s election. Since then he has maintained a fragile peace through the use of large numbers of soldiers and police and the help of paramilitary “colectivos” – armed volunteers accused of quelling protests through the neighboring terrorist regime.
FEDERICO PARRA/AFP/Getty
Former diplomat Gonzalez Urrutia, 75, expressed that plans to fly to Caracas this week to take over the government, but the plan is considered as something that will not continue.
“Wanted” posters offer a $100,000 government reward because his capture was spread all over Caracas.
Gonzalez Urrutia has been on an international tour seeking to put pressure on Maduro, 62, to relinquish power. Including a stop in Washington to meet with Mr. Biden, who called for a “peaceful return to democracy.”
Maduro has been in power since 2013, following Hugo Chavez, a left-wing activist, diedhis political advisor. His re-election in 2018 was also widely dismissed as a fraud but he managed to hold on to power through a mixture of apartheid and repression, as the economy boomed.
Maduro enjoys support from Russia and Cuba, as well as loyal soldiers, judges and state institutions in a well-established political support system.
Thousands of supporters of the ruling party protested in central Caracas on Thursday, vowing to block any attempt to block Maduro’s return to power.