Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado briefly detained

María Corina Machado, the driving force of Venezuela’s opposition movement, was briefly detained Thursday as she left a rally in Caracas, the opposition campaign said, a day before President Nicolás Maduro plans to take office for a third term.

Machado was “intercepted and knocked off the motorcycle she was riding,” amid gunfire, the campaign said in a statement on X. “She was taken away by force. During the period of her kidnapping she was forced to record several videos.” She was later released.

One person was shot and wounded “when the repressive forces of the regime detained me,” Machado said in a post on X hours later.

“I am now in a safe place and with more determination than ever before to stand with you UNTIL THE END!” Machado added.

“The fact that María Corina is free does not minimize what happened,” said Edmundo González, the exiled opposition leader recognized by the United States and several other countries as Venezuela’s president-elect, adding “she was kidnapped in conditions of violence.”

Venezuela’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, in a televised interview accused Machado of “lying” about the detention.

“That was their plan, to tell the world ‘I was captured’ to see what it would generate,” Cabello said.

While the circumstances of her brief detention and release remained unclear, Thursday’s events left Venezuelans in a moment of heightened tension and uncertainty ahead of Maduro’s planned inauguration.

Machado, Venezuela’s “Iron Lady” who led the opposition’s presidential campaign and its effort to provide evidence of its victory in the July 28 election, had emerged in public for the first time in months to lead protesters in rejecting Maduro’s increasingly authoritarian rule. Supporters gathered for opposition rallies across Venezuela and in cities around the world. Machado stood over a sea of people in Caracas as they chanted: “We are not afraid!”

Machado’s quick release raised suspicions among some observers about potential divisions within Maduro’s security forces and armed pro-government groups known as “colectivos.”

Andrés Izarra, a former minister under Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chávez, said the events reveal that the Maduro government is “divided and erratic.”

“By detaining Machado, even temporarily, Maduro has crossed a massive red line,” said Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “At this point Maduro is outright daring the U.S. to slap on harsher sanctions and adopt a harder line.”

The brief detention and Maduro’s swearing in comes days before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, who in his first term pursued a “maximum pressure” strategy on Caracas – sanctioning the oil that is its main source of income – and recognized an opposition leader, then Juan Guaidó, as its rightful president. In a post Thursday on Truth Social, Trump described González and Machado as “freedom fighters” and said they “should not be harmed.”

The Biden administration, meanwhile, was tracking the reports of Machado’s arrest “very closely,” said Sean Savett, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

“We condemn such arrests, repression and intimidation, which cannot obscure the fact that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is the true winner of the July 28 elections.”

Maduro, an ironfisted autocrat who has overcome every political challenge standing in his way in more than a decade in power, has mobilized his security forces to clamp down against dissent ahead of his inauguration. After a monthslong crackdown against anyone associated with the opposition, more than 1,700 political prisoners remain behind bars, and those who dared protest Thursday knew they could be next.

Despite the military checkpoints across the city, thousands of people poured onto the streets of Caracas , walking along blocked highways and roads to reach opposition rallies, waving Venezuelan flags and crying out “libertad!” – freedom.

“All of the strength that we’ve built and that grows every day prepares us to finish this final phase,” Machado said, speaking just a few hundred feet away from government intelligence agents. “Whatever they do tomorrow, they will continue to bury themselves.”

Machado had been in hiding for more than 100 days, avoiding an order for her arrest and speaking only virtually.

Hundreds of pro-Maduro motorcycle gang members, armed and masked, circled the protests a few hundred yards from Machado as she spoke from the top of a truck.

“What they want is for people to be afraid and not to go out,” said one 69-year-old woman who joined the rally in Caracas. “But we want an end to this dictatorship. That’s what this is, a dictatorship.”

Her children have all left the country, she said, but she stayed behind with her neighbors, working as a seamstress at home. She spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution. But she was willing to risk her safety, she said, to demand an end to Maduro’s grip on power.

Vote tallies provided by the opposition – and verified by The Washington Post and independent election observers – showed that Maduro probably lost the country’s presidential election in a landslide. Maduro, meanwhile, has refused to release the official precinct-level results to support his claim to victory.

“That day changed history,” Machado said in her speech at the rally. “The regime collapsed.”

Even some of the leftist presidents in the region, who have previously walked a fine line with Maduro, have declined to accept his claim to the presidency. But the growing international pressure and widespread support for the opposition do not appear to be enough to stop Maduro from taking office once again.

González – who fled to Spain months ago – vowed to enter Venezuela to be sworn into office Friday. But with a $100,000 bounty on his head, and threats from the Maduro government to arrest him as soon as he steps foot in Venezuela, González’s return is, at best, a long shot.

González was in the Dominican Republic on Thursday wrapping up an international tour, after a visit with President Joe Biden in the White House, to rally support for his cause. As Maduro prepares to be sworn in, he faces growing isolation in the region and around the world. A host of Latin American presidents, including leaders in Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and others, have recognized González as president-elect.

The leftist presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have announced they will not be attending Maduro’s inauguration but plan to send representatives instead. It remained unclear whether any pro-Maduro presidents of the region planned to attend. Bolivia, which congratulated Maduro after the election, plans to send its foreign minister, a spokesman confirmed.