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.
Why are y'all forgetting that there were over 800 international observers in the elections?
https://nlginternational.org/2024/07/national-lawyers-guild-report-election-monitoring-delegation-to-the-bolivarian-republic-of-venezuela/
You guys supporting armed protestors against the election results before the final election acts are released, are supporting something strikingly similar to USA's Jan 6th assault on Capitol. It's good to be cautious about the results, but outright calling Venezuela a dictatorship when there's no evidence of interference in the elections is lunacy.
Did you read the article? They only said that the process to vote went smoothly, despite all the stations having only one machine for 800 voters, causing long wait times and delays. They don't mention anything about third party confirmation of the vote tallies, no references to exit polls, and a huge section dedicated to US interference.
Might as well say "Far left organization supports supposedly far left authoritarian governments word without verification."
Ok, which others of the 800+ international observers from a whole array of ideologies and countries have found and documented any serious irregularities in the election process? Afaik, only Carter "foundation", which is extremely US-centric and has clear pro-US bias has tried to make such claims, without any substance behind them. And, believe it or not, the burden of proof when calling for violent riots against election results, is on the people claiming that the elections were rigged.