MARACAIBO/VALENCIA/CARACAS, Venezuela, (Reuters) – Supporters of Venezuela’s political opposition and backers of the ruling party each held rallies today to mark the one-month anniversary of July’s disputed presidential election, as arrests of opposition figures continued.
Venezuela’s electoral council and its top court have proclaimed President Nicolas Maduro, in power since 2013, as the winner of the July 28 election, but has not published complete voting tallies. Venezuela’s opposition has published its own tallies showing a landslide win for its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez.
The disagreement has sparked international calls for the release of full tallies, deadly protests, and moves by authorities to arrest opposition figures and journalists.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told Reuters on Tuesday that peaceful street protests and international pressure still have the potential to unseat Maduro.
Later that day, opposition groups reported at least two arrests of staff, including a lawyer for Machado’s movement.
“Around the world the cry of Venezuelans is being heard,” Machado – the main face of the opposition – told supporters at a lunchtime rally in Caracas, urging them to keep up pressure and “at the same time protect one another, because what the regime has let loose is brutal.”
Shortly after the rally, the opposition coalition said party leader Biagio Pilieri, who appeared alongside Machado, had been arrested.
The last known location of Pilieri, the head of the Convergencia Venezuela party, was outside the Helicoide prison in Caracas, the coalition said on X, adding a screenshot of his cellphone’s location and saying he had been with his son Jesus, an opposition youth leader.
“Does Venezuela want a civil war? It will be resolved with laws, with justice, with the established order, that is how it has been, that is how it will be,” Maduro said at his own rally.
In the western oil city of Maracaibo, fewer than 100 opposition supporters gathered for a brief protest early on Wednesday, closely watched by police.
“This is the last gathering I’ll attend, I’m leaving the country on Friday,” said engineering student Stiward Prieto, 23. He said he lost his job at a public power company after the election and that he had to support his elderly father, a retired teacher with diabetes.
“It hurts me to leave like this, but there is no option,” Prieto said as he waved a Venezuelan flag.
Small crowds also gathered in San Cristobal, near the border with Colombia, in the central cities of Barquisimeto and Valencia and in eastern Puerto Ordaz.
Many attendees were older adults, Reuters witnesses said. Gonzalez and Machado, aged 74 and 56, respectively, focused much of their campaign rhetoric on older populations who would like to see migrant children and grandchildren return home.
“My family was huge – between aunts and uncles, cousins, siblings, children and others we were nearly 600 people. Now there are only 25. There are family members in Chile, Turkey, Spain, Italy, Australia, everywhere,” said retired teacher Maria Carrasquel, 63. Her public pension, equivalent to $5 a month, was not enough to buy food, she added.
More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left in recent years and others have said that they would seek to go too if Maduro’s socialists continued in power.
At a pro-government rally in Caracas, ruling party supporter Andres Guillen said Maduro was the election winner.
“The fascists tried a month ago to destabilize our country but we did it thanks to the strength of the people, the nobility, the humility,” he told state television.
Protests since the vote have led to at least 27 deaths. Human rights group Foro Penal says some 1,780 people are being held as political prisoners, including 114 adolescents.
Gonzalez, who along with Machado, is being investigated for incitement and other crimes by Attorney General Tarek Saab, has ignored two summons to testify about the opposition website where vote tallies have been posted.
Saab told a press conference on Wednesday afternoon he would issue a third summons, which would mark the final opportunity for Gonzalez to appear before Venezuelan law allows an arrest warrant to be issued for him.
“If he misses it, the public ministry will announce a corresponding action,” Saab said.
The electoral council says it has not yet posted detailed tallies of what it says is Maduro’s victory, with just over half of votes, because a cyberattack affected its system.
