Masked men loot opposition party headquarters in Venezuela
After the presidential election in Venezuela, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado goes into hiding out of fear of arrest. Meanwhile, the headquarters of her party is attacked by masked men. However, Maduro's opponents continue to call for mass protests against the regime.
Amidst the power struggle following the presidential election in Venezuela, the party of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado reported an attack on its headquarters. Six masked attackers broke into the building in the capital Caracas overnight and made off with valuable documents and equipment, the party Vente Venezuela said. It published images on social media showing walls in the party headquarters covered in black paint, apparently sprayed by the suspects.
Machado herself has gone into hiding after controversial President Nicolas Maduro threatened her with arrest. After the election last Sunday, the pro-government electoral council declared socialist Maduro the winner. However, the opposition alliance around his candidate Edmundo Gonzalez soon declared that it had counting results from more than 80 percent of the voting districts, according to which Gonzalez had won by a large margin.
Several countries, including the USA and several Latin American countries, as well as the EU, doubted the result announced by the electoral council. Even countries allied with the Maduro government called on Venezuelan authorities to publish counting results from individual voting districts, as they had done in previous elections. On Wednesday, Maduro ordered the Supreme Court of the country to review the officially announced election result, but foreign observers reacted with skepticism, given that the court, like many other institutions in Venezuela, is controlled by the socialist government.
USA recognizes opposition candidate as president
In a statement on Thursday evening, the US government recognized Gonzalez as the election winner and called for a peaceful transition in Venezuela. Maduro reacted with sharp criticism and accused the USA of meddling in the internal affairs of his country. "The United States should keep its nose out of Venezuela," he demanded.
After the announcement of the controversial election result by the electoral council, thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets. According to the government, there were hundreds of arrests, and the Venezuela-based human rights organization Foro Penal reported eleven deaths in the protests. Since opposition leader Machado and candidate Gonzalez appeared at a mass rally on Tuesday, they have not been seen in public again.
In a contribution published by the "Wall Street Journal" on Thursday, Machado wrote that she was hiding "because I fear for my life, my freedom, and that of my fellow citizens." She again emphasized that the opposition had concrete evidence of Maduro's defeat. Now it is up to the international community to decide whether it wants to tolerate a demonstratively illegal government, Machado wrote, who has been banned from holding office by the authorities. Later, she posted a video on social media calling on opposition supporters to gather for nationwide demonstrations this Saturday.
The opposition party of Maria Corina Machado, who has gone into hiding, has accused The Commission, presumably referring to the electoral council, of not publishing counting results from individual voting districts, as they had done in previous elections. Despite the controversy surrounding the election result and Maduro's threats, The Commission declared Maduro the winner.
