Venezuela’s opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, has been released a few moments ago after being briefly detained in Caracas by agents of President Nicolas Maduro’s regime. According to her allies, she was “kidnapped” after sneaking out of her hideout to participate in a rally against the authoritarian president.
Maduro is set to be sworn in for his third term as president tomorrow, despite widespread suspicion that he manipulated last July’s elections. The Chavista head of state has so far produced no evidence of his victory, despite international calls for his government to publish full election tallies. Machado’s movement, meanwhile, quickly published voter records demonstrating that its presidential candidate, Edmundo Urrutia Gonzalez, was the legitimate winner.
Maria Corina Machado released by Venezuelan government forces after detention
On Thursday thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets of Caracas and other cities across Venezuela to protest against Maduro’s planned swearing-in. The ceremony is set to take place at the capital’s Milaflores Palace, January 10.
Machado, who was to lead the protest against Maduro’s regime, was reportedly “violently intercepted” and fired upon by government forces. She had been in hiding since the last elections to avoid capture by the regime, her team has said.
After spending more than 133 days in a secret location, Machado, 57, appeared at a large march in the Venezuelan capital earlier this afternoon, defying the threats of arrest repeatedly made by the Venezuelan president and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello. Climbing onto a truck in the heavily militarized and tense city, she led protestors in chants of “We are not afraid.” According to her representatives, Machado had left the rally but was detained after “regime officials opened fire on the motorbikes that were transporting her.”
At the march, Machado had warned Maduro’s party to respect the results of the July 28 elections. “What they do tomorrow will seal the regime’s fate. If they commit this crime against the constitution and popular sovereignty, they will be sentencing their destiny,” she said.
According to her political party, she was released a few moments later.
Arrest sparks wide-spread condemnation
Following Machado’s arrest, Gonzalez Urrutia quickly took to social media to condemn the actions by Maduro’s authorities. “As the elected president, I demand the immediate release of Maria Corina Machado,” González Urrutia wrote on his X account. He added a stern warning to the security forces involved in her arrest: “Do not play with fire.”
Como presidente electo, exijo la liberación inmediata de María Corina Machado.
A los cuerpos de seguridad que la secuestraron les digo: no jueguen con fuego.
— Edmundo González (@EdmundoGU) January 9, 2025
Former Colombian president Iván Duque also condemned Machado’s detention and demanded the immediate intervention of the International Criminal Court. “The international community must seriously contemplate a humanitarian intervention to re-establish democratic order,” Duque stated in a video shared on his social media. He also called the detention “yet another demonstration of the vileness of the cowardly dictator Maduro.” During his presidency, which ran from 2018 to 2022, Duque was a vocal critic of Maduro.
Meanwhile, on Thursday afternoon, the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was holding an emergency meeting to evaluate the situation and to decide upon the response from the government of President Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first leftist head of state. As of earlier today, the Colombian Ambassador to Venezuela, Milton Rengifo, was meant to attend tomorrow’s signing-in ceremony of President Maduro.
However, Petro himself – who unlike many of his counterparts elsewhere in Latin America and internationally has not cut off ties with Maduro – said he would not be present at the ceremony due to the Maduro regime’s earlier kidnapping of “Enrique Márquez, a prominent Venezuelan progressive [politician] and Carlos Correa, a prominent human rights defender in Venezuela.”
In Panama, Machado’s detention sparked condemnation from President José Raúl Mulino. “The dictatorial regime is responsible for her life,” he wrote on X.
In Europe, Spain and Italy have also condemned Maduro’s government, a senior official of which told Spain’s El Pais newspaper that Corina Machado had not been detained and was instead “calmly at home.”
Detention follows continued repression of opposition
Since Venezuela’s July 2024 elections, the Maduro regime has increasingly turned to repression and intimidation to crackdown on the opposition. While Gonzalez Urrutia fled to Spain in September to evade persecution by Maduro’s government, he returned to Latin America las week to visit states in the region in a bid to garner support for ahead of tomorrow’s signing-in ceremony. While he still insists that he will be in Caracas on Friday to be sworn in as Venezuela’s rightful president, the Chavista regime has said they will arrest him immediately upon arrival.
On Tuesday, his son in law was arrested, and soon afterwards drones began flying over the house of Corina Machado. Meanwhile, government agents have been guarding the homes of opposition supporters and critics of the Maduro regime, and arrests have taken place across the country in an attempt to silence opponents.