Venezuela’s opposition, claiming victory in presidential elections they say were stolen by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, on Saturday gathered in the thousands in Caracas and elsewhere, vowing to fight “to the end.”
People rallied in several cities in Venezuela and as far afield as Spain, Belgium and Australia in response to a call by opposition leader Maria Corina Machado to join a “Protest for the Truth.”
Machado herself came out of hiding to lead a rally in the capital, seeking to intensify pressure on Maduro to concede what she and others say was an overwhelming win for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia in July 28 polls.
Photo: AFP
“We won’t leave the streets,” Machado told thousands of demonstrators, many of whom waved the national flag and copies of election records from their voting stations as proof of an opposition victory.
“Peaceful protest is our right,” she said as demonstrators chanted “Liberty, liberty” and clamored to get as near as possible to the wildly popular politician.
Authorities later confiscated the open-top truck that Machado uses as a stage at rallies, including on Saturday, her Comando Con Venezuela alliance wrote on X.
The Venezuelan National Electoral Council proclaimed Maduro the winner of a third six-year term until 2031, giving him 52 percent of votes cast, but without providing a detailed breakdown of the results.
The opposition says polling station-level results show Gonzalez Urrutia took more than two-thirds of the vote. He had replaced Machado on the ballot after she was barred from running by institutions loyal to the regime.
“This is a criminal government that wants to hold on to power. I smell freedom, I have nothing to fear,” demonstrator Adriana Calzadilla, a 55-year-old teacher, said in Caracas, where Venezuelan National Guard officers and police were out in force.
Another demonstrator, 42-year-old economist Iliana Alvarean, said that she did “feel fear.”
“One does not stop feeling it, because of the repression, but we want him [Maduro’] out. We are here to the end,” Alvarean said.
No incidents were reported from the rallies, which took place under heavy security.
Maduro on Saturday accused Gonzalez Urrutia, who last appeared in public at a protest on July 30, of trying to flee the country.
“He’s hiding in a cave, and he’s preparing his escape from Venezuela. Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is taking the money and going to Miami,” Maduro told supporters at a rally outside the Miraflores presidential palace.
He has called for Machado and Gonzalez Urrutia to be arrested, accusing them of seeking to foment a “coup d’etat.”
Gonzalez Urrutia was defiant, writing on X earlier in the day: “We have the votes, the records, the support of the international community and Venezuelans determined to fight. It is time for an orderly transition.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS