Venezuela opposition calls protests as U.S. backs transition

Bloomberg News

Banned opposition leader Maria Corina Machado called for protests across Venezuela to defend what her party sees as its rightful electoral victory, as President Joe Biden’s top diplomat said the U.S. backs a transition of power.

Washington’s declaration that Machado’s stand-in candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, clearly won the vote ratchets up pressure on Nicolas Maduro’s socialist regime.

Both sides have called their supporters into the streets this weekend, setting up the potential for violent clashes. Maduro’s government has rounded up hundreds of protesters already, and Machado’s party headquarters was ransacked overnight.

“We will all gather with our family, with our kids, our grandchildren, our grandparents in all of Venezuela’s cities” on Saturday morning, Machado said Thursday in a video posted on X.

The U.S. told an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States on Wednesday that Gonzalez defeated Maduro in last Sunday’s vote. Secretary Antony Blinken doubled down on that assessment shortly after the opposition urged its supporters to take to the streets.

“It is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election,” Blinken said Thursday in a statement. While he stopped short of calling Gonzalez president-elect, he urged Venezuelan parties “to begin discussions on a respectful, peaceful transition” and said the U.S. supports “re-establishing democratic norms in Venezuela.”

Machado said in an opinion article published earlier Thursday in the Wall Street Journal that she is in hiding and fearing for her life after Maduro called for her and Gonzalez to be jailed for decades. It’s unclear if Machado and Gonzalez will attend the protests, but the call for nationwide demonstrations comes as foreign nations are being increasingly vocal in supporting their win against Maduro, who has governed Venezuela since 2013.

“I could be captured as I write these words,” Machado wrote. A separate piece by the newspaper’s editorial board said the government had already issued their arrest warrants, but the country’s top prosecutor didn’t respond to a request to confirm.

“We Venezuelans have done our duty. We have voted out Mr. Maduro,” she wrote. “Now it is up to the international community to decide whether to tolerate a demonstrably illegitimate government.”

She said that repression by the government must stop immediately, so that an urgent agreement can take place to facilitate the transition to democracy.

Just hours after Machado’s opinion piece was published, Maduro addressed the nation on state television, warning that two maximum-security state prisons that were under renovation would soon be ready for the thousands of Venezuelans who have protested the election results.

The Tocoron and Tocuyito prisons will be ready in 15 days, and will take in the more than 1,200 protesters who have been arrested since Monday and another 1,000 who are still to be apprehended, he said. It was the latest hard line he’s taken against protesters, after on Wednesday promising they would serve at least 30 years in prison.

Diosdado Cabello, head of the ruling Socialist Party and a close Maduro ally, called for government loyalists to mount counter-demonstrations on Saturday.

At least 11 people have been killed so far since nationwide protests broke out, with nonprofit groups that track the clashes registering more than 560 demonstrations across all 24 states in Venezuela.

Machado said most of her team is in hiding, and six of her top aides who had taken refuge in the Argentine embassy in Caracas fear an imminent raid, she said. Her headquarters in eastern Caracas was assaulted by six masked assailants, according to a post on X by her party Friday morning. The men broke into the office, stole equipment and documents, and sprayed graffiti on the walls.

Brazil took custody of Argentina’s mission Thursday morning, and Maduro has promised to respect the sovereignty of the embassy, according to a Brazilian official familiar with the matter. Argentina’s embassy staff were expelled by Maduro, who also gave diplomats from Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Panama and the Dominican Republic until Friday to leave.

“Instead of hiding,” Machado and Gonzalez should appear before the prosecutor’s office, Maduro said Wednesday, building on top lawmaker Jorge Rodriguez’s call for her arrest after Venezuelans took to the streets to protest this week.

Amid speculation of their potential detentions, Costa Rica offered political asylum to Machado, Gonzalez and all those facing persecution. Machado said after the offer was made on Tuesday that she was grateful but that her duty was to continue fighting along Venezuelan people.

It remains unclear if she is willing to accept the proposal. Her press team didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

The international community has long applied sanctions on Venezuela to weaken and potentially unseat Maduro with no success. Since Sunday’s election, the U.S. and other Latin American nations have said Maduro needs to provide proof of his self-declared win by showing ballot tabulations. The Group of Seven released a statement Thursday calling for the release of detailed voting data, and “for maximum restraint in the country and for a peaceful, democratic and Venezuelan-led solution.”

Maduro’s administration also complained this week that the Biden administration hadn’t complied with part of a deal it signed with the U.S. in Qatar last year involving sanctions applied against Venezuela.

On Thursday, Venezuela published what it said is a copy of the deal. The document says the U.S. would have had to lift some of its sanctions if the South American nation invited observers to monitor its election. The sanctions weren’t lifted, however, after Venezuela invited them in March.

The document also said that all candidates complying with the law should be allowed to participate in this year’s election, without naming any names.

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(With assistance from Eric Martin.)