“We will make Maduro give in,” says Venezuelan opposition

Photo: Juan Barreto Agence France-Presse “[The members of the government] say that the regime is not going to give in, you know what? We are going to make it give in, and giving in means respecting the will expressed on July 28,” Maria Corina Machado said on Wednesday.

Patrick Fort – Agence France-Presse and Margioni Bermudez – Agence France-Presse in Caracas

Published at 16:34

• Americas

“We’re going to make him give in,” Maria Corina Machado, the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, told hundreds of supporters at a demonstration in Caracas about President Nicolas Maduro, whose re-election she is contesting in late July.

“They [members of the government] say that the regime is not going to give in, you know what? We’re going to make him give in, and giving in means respecting the will expressed on July 28,” just a month ago, Machado said.

“The protests cannot be stopped. […] There is no turning back,” she added.

Assuring her supporters that the opposition had “a strategy,” she said that “no democratic government has recognized Maduro’s fraud.”

“Freedom! Freedom!” or “We are not afraid,” the protesters responded to Ms. Machado, who arrived on a truck with other leaders. As in the last two opposition demonstrations, she then quickly left the scene on a motorbike.

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“Continuing the fight”, despite fear

Maria Corina Machado, who lives in the semi-clandestine, had not appeared in public since the last demonstration on August 17. The opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, was not present on Wednesday.

“I'm fighting for Venezuela, to recover our democracy. We don't want to live in a dictatorship,” exclaims Laidy Molina, 60, a nutritionist who is demonstrating with the opposition.

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“We are afraid. In Venezuela, we fear that they will put us in prison, that they will not respect the Constitution, but we must continue the fight,” she adds.

This was the fourth major rally that the opposition has called, after those of July 30, August 3 and 17.

AFP journalists noted the presence in the morning of a security force including riot police.

The day after the announcement of Mr. Maduro’s re-election, spontaneous demonstrations left 27 dead and 192 injured, according to an official source. Some 2,400 people were also arrested, according to the same source.

Interior and Justice Ministers Headed by a Hardliner

Nicolas Maduro, 61, whose supporters will also march Wednesday afternoon to celebrate “his victory,” made a major cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday.

The powerful Diosdado Cabello has notably taken charge of the Interior and Justice Ministries. Often considered a hardliner, this former comrade-in-arms of ex-President Hugo Chavez immediately set the tone: “I am returning to this ministry 22 years later, I was Minister of the Interior in 2002. We were in that battle alongside President Chavez and we defeated them at that time,” he said, referring to the anti-government protesters.

President Maduro also “ratified” the appointment to the Defense Ministry of General Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who has repeatedly sworn his “absolute loyalty” to the government despite calls from the opposition to rally to it.

M. Maduro was declared the winner with 52% of the vote by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which did not, however, make public the minutes of the polling stations.

“Persecution”

According to the opposition, which has released the minutes provided by its scrutineers, its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia obtained more than 60% of the vote.

Also living in hiding for three weeks, Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia ignored for the second time in two days on Tuesday a summons from the prosecutor's office as part of an investigation into usurpation of power, with the opposition website proclaiming him the winner.

The opposition coalition United Platform (PU) says it now fears an arrest warrant “against our winning candidate, in order to intensify his persecution.”

Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a 74-year-old former ambassador, is at risk of arrest. The prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into him and Ms. Machado in early August for “usurpation of functions, dissemination of false information, incitement to disobedience of the law, incitement to insurrection, criminal association.”