SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has gone into hiding after the regime of Nicolás Maduro asked to arrest her and Edmundo Gonzalezafter the controversial elections where the victory was attributed to the Chavista dictator without showing evidence of the minutes.
“I am writing this from hiding, fearing for my life, my freedom and that of my fellow countrymen in the dictatorship led by Nicolás Maduro,” the opposition member wrote in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.
“Maduro did not win the elections Venezuelan presidential elections on Sunday. He lost in a landslide to Edmundo Gonzalez, 67% to 30%. I know this is true because I can prove it. I have receipts obtained directly from more than 80% of the country’s polling stations,” he said, after having verified the results of each table and having posted the minutes on a website.
His words, which come a day after Nicolas Maduro said that she and Edmundo González “should be behind bars,” alleging that the Venezuelan ruler committed fraud. “We have known for years what tricks the regime uses and we know perfectly well that the National Electoral Council is totally under its control. It was unthinkable that Maduro would recognize his defeat.”
In a recounting of events since the election day on Sunday, July 28, Machado said that the regime did everything possible to sabotage and derail the campaign of its opponents.
She even recalled that, despite having won an open primary with 92% support, she was disqualified from running in the presidential elections and then her substitute, Corina Yoris, was prevented from doing so. “Dozens of my colleagues were imprisoned, and six of my main collaborators, including my campaign manager, asked for asylum in the Argentine embassy.”
“The regime could never have imagined that our movement would grow in numbers and gradually take over the entire Chavista voter base. The population that fueled Hugo Chavez’s meteoric rise is now disillusioned and has taken its future into its own hands,” he wrote.
Regime officials, he admitted, announced a fraudulent result, stating that Ripe had won with 51% of the votes with “80% of the votes counted.” “The truth is that Maduro did not win in a single one of Venezuela’s 24 states. This was not only confirmed by four different quick counts and two independent exit polls, but also by every voting receipt we saw arriving, in real time,” he said.
The president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Jorge Rodríguez, asked that Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia were arrested after the mass protests that broke out in different localities on Monday, July 29, the day after the elections electoral.
In a campaign to discredit and delegitimize the opposition, which has verified the minutes and claims to have the majority of votes in its favor, Rodríguez indicated that both Machado and González “knew about these plans,” referring to the protests.
In addition, dictator Nicolás Maduro met with the authorities of the High Military Command and political structures at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas.
In a televised meeting broadcast live, Maduro blamed opposition leaders for the protests and showed alleged videos of what he called “terrorist acts,” which were nothing more than expressions of discontent after Maduro was declared the winner of an election riddled with irregularities.
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