(Bloomberg) — Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado emerged from hiding on Saturday to lead a rally in Caracas, defying the government’s threat to imprison her.
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It was the first time she appeared in public since Tuesday, amid demonstrations around the nation protesting what opposition leaders — as well as the US and many other nations — say was President Nicolás Maduro’s theft of the July 28 election.
Machado, who was prevented from running herself, said on Thursday she had gone into hiding for fear of her life, following comments from Maduro that she and her stand-in candidate Edmundo González should be “behind bars.”
“It’s been six days of brutal repression, of attempts to silence, frighten or paralyze us,” Machado told supporters at the rally. “The presence of each one of you here shows the world the magnitude of strength and what it means that we will go until the end.”
Machado joined an opposition politician’s caravan as it arrived in the Las Mercedes neighborhood, in east Caracas, where hundreds of supporters gathered with their flags. González didn’t join her.
Concerns ran high that Machado would be arrested if she appeared in public as tensions rise around the country. On Friday, Maduro alleged that the opposition was planning an attack with grenades less than two miles away from the planned protest site.
Meantime, hundreds of people on motorbikes crowded Caracas’s main highway that runs to the center of the city in support of Maduro, according to images on state television. Motorists from the Petare area, a low-income area, crossed the highway, saying they would defend Maduro’s government against what they said was fraud by the opposition.
On Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who earlier recognized González as the winner, spoke with him and Machado. He expressed concern for the two leaders’ safety and “applauded the Venezuelan people for their dedication to democracy in the face of significant challenges.”
Detailed election results provided by the opposition showed its candidate took almost 70% of the vote, nearly twice Maduro’s share. Maduro has claimed 51% of the vote, the government-controlled election authority said.
Colombia’s electoral observers said late Saturday that an analysis based on Venezuela’s electoral board’s second report and the opposition’s database shows González as the winner. The group called on the government to hold a thorough audit of the votes.
(Adds comment from Colombia’s electoral observers in final paragraph.)
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