Thousands of Venezuelan opposition supporters rally in capital

Thousands rallied in the streets of Venezuela’s capital on Saturday to support opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, who they believe won the presidential election by a landslide. 

Authorities have declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner of last Sunday’s national elections in Venezuela but have yet to produce voting tallies to confirm his win. 

Maduro’s government arrested hundreds of opposition supporters who had taken to the streets in the days after the disputed poll. He has also threatened to lock up opposition leader María Corina Machado and her hand-picked presidential candidate, Edmundo González. 

Supporters chanted and sang as Machado arrived at the rally in Caracas on Saturday.  

Machado, who Maduro’s government has barred 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 vandalising the space. 

Maduro held a Venezuela flag aloft on Saturday and promised that the government whose policies have forces million to emigrate was finally coming to an end. 

“We have already won the election. Now comes a new stage. We knew that just as it took us a long time to achieve the electoral victory, now comes a stage that we live day by day. But we have never been as strong as we are today. Never has the regime been as weak as it is today,” said Machado before thousands of supporters. 

When the rally ended, Machado was given a nondescript shirt and whisked away on the back of a motorcycle. 

González, who remains in hiding, was not seen at the event.