Venezuela: President Maduro and his opponents organize parallel rallies
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado led a massive demonstration in Caracas on Saturday.
Machado and her allies arrived, greeting supporters from the top of a truck at the site where thousands of demonstrators gathered, cheering her with the chant of “Freedom, freedom.”
After last Sunday’s controversial presidential elections, the government and the opposition called on Saturday for mobilizations in the Venezuelan capital, raising tensions in the South American country.
President Nicolas Maduro and his opponents proclaimed themselves winners while international pressure grew to find a negotiated solution to the crisis.
In the middle of the electoral dispute, the Supreme Court of Justice asked the electoral body on Friday to record the tally sheets of the polling stations within three days.
The president has blamed the opposition for the protests that broke out earlier this week in the country, which left 11 dead and more than 1,200 arrested, according to non-governmental organizations.
The protests broke out after the National Electoral Council (CNE), controlled by the ruling party, proclaimed Maduro the winner of the July 28 presidential elections, which the opposition did not recognize.
Meanwhile, Machado gathered opponents in an upper-middle-class neighborhood east of the capital, one of the opposition’s strongholds, to celebrate the election of Machado’s ally Edmundo Gonzalez.
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s ruling party summoned its followers Saturday in Caracas to carry out what they called the “mother of all marches” to celebrate what they assure was Nicolás Maduro’s reelection for a third term.
Maduro has hardened in the last few days the attacks against the opposition, particularly against leader María Corina Machado and presidential candidate Edmundo González.
“Today, he was afraid to swear himself in. He did not go to the opposition march. The gentleman was afraid today. They were going to put the sash on him today, and he was going to be sworn in. He was afraid. You dripped, González Urrutia.” said Maduro.
Maduro has blamed both opposition leaders for the protests that took place at the beginning of the week in Caracas and several cities of the interior which left 11 dead and 939 arrested, among them 90 teenagers, according to humanitarian organizations.
“We are winning,” Maduro said later before several thousand supporters and public employees who gathered outside the presidential palace to celebrate his reelection.
Maduro downplayed the importance of the opposition sectors’ claims, demanding the country’s National Electoral Council publish the tally sheets and affirming that they are only motivated by hatred and revenge.
By Rédaction Africanews
