CARACAS, Venezuela (news agencies) — 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” later Saturday 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.
Carmen Elena García, a 57-year-old street vendor was at the rally even though she feared a government crackdown.
“They have to respect me and they have to respect all the Venezuelans who voted against this government,” García said. “We will not accept them stealing our votes. They have to respect our votes.”
On Friday, Maduro alleged during a news conference that members of the opposition were planning an attack in a Caracas neighborhood on Saturday. He said he had ordered the armed forces to guard the neighborhood.
While a column of pro-government motorcycle riders, who have served as militia for Maduro in the past, rode near the opposition rally, there were no confrontations. There was only a light police presence.
The Organization of American States on Saturday called for “reconciliation and justice” in Venezuela, saying “let all Venezuelans who express themselves in the streets find only an echo of peace, a peace that reflects the spirit of democracy.”
Later in the day, thousands of government supporters gathered in front of the Miraflores national palace, where Maduro has his offices.
Wearing red caps and shirts — the color of Maduro’s party — they danced and listened to folk songs while waiting for Maduro to speak. There were fewer national flags, and a lot of umbrellas against the burning Caracas sun.
Machado and González, a 74-year-old former diplomat, said tally sheets they obtained from voting machines in polling centers nationwide show Maduro lost his bid for a third six-year term by a landslide.
An media analysis Friday of vote tally sheets released by the opposition coalition indicates that Gonzalez won significantly more votes in the election than the government has claimed, casting serious doubt on the official declaration that Maduro won.
Late Friday, Venezuela’s high court, the Supreme Justice Tribunal, ordered the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council to hand over the precinct vote count sheets in three days. There have been calls from multiple governments, including Maduro’s close regional allies, for Venezuela’s electoral authorities to release the precinct-level tallies, as it has after previous elections.
The news agencies processed almost 24,000 images of tally sheets, representing the results from 79% of voting machines. Each sheet encoded vote counts in QR codes, which the news agencies programmatically decoded and analyzed, resulting in tabulations of 10.26 million votes.
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