Maria Corina Machado: Venezuela opposition leader Machado free after being ‘violently abducted’, her team says

CNN
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Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said she is now safe after her aides said she was “abducted” at a protest in Caracas on the eve of President Nicolas Maduro’s inauguration.

Machado’s political group wrote X that she had been “violently intercepted” on Thursday as she left the meeting.

In a later update, her team wrote that “during her kidnapping period, she was forced to record several videos and was later released.”

Machado posted a statement on his X account late Thursday, indicating she would provide more details later.

“I am now in a safe place and more determined than ever to continue with you UNTIL THE END!” she wrote. “Tomorrow I will tell you what happened today and what is to come.”

“I have never felt so proud to be Venezuelan. Thank you, thank you, to all the citizens who took to the streets to claim our victory on July 28 and to OWN IT!” she added.

Fears of repression in Venezuela have escalated in recent days as the inauguration of Maduro’s third term approaches on Friday, following last year’s disputed presidential election.

However, the Venezuelan government has denied detaining Machado.

Speaking at a pro-government protest, Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello accused the opposition of “lying that the government had captured Maria Corina” for the sake of the public.

The country’s Justice Minister Tarek William Saab accused Machado of creating “victimization theater” and of trying to carry out a “psychological operation to trigger acts of violence” ahead of Maduro’s inauguration.

“They have tried to eclipse – without succeeding – a day of joy for the Venezuelan people, like tomorrow, January 10,” Saab said in a statement shared with CNN.

Maduro was declared the winner of July’s presidential election by electoral authorities under the tight control of the ruling Socialist Party.

But Venezuela’s opposition, led by Machado, released thousands of tallies claiming their own candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, had actually won the vote with 67% to Maduro’s 30%.

Independent observers such as the Carter Center and the Colombian Electoral Mission, as well as CNN’s own analysis, have since found the opposition to be legitimate.

Machado’s appearance at the rally was her first public appearance in months since the government cracked down on Venezuelan opposition figures and their supporters after the vote. “I’m here,” she wrote on X earlier Thursday, along with a video of herself at the protest, wearing jeans and the colors of the Venezuelan flag.

In a video distributed by Reuters on Thursday afternoon, a figure purporting to be Machado wades through a crowd of protesters in Caracas, wearing a black motorcycle helmet and jacket. The protesters push and follow the figure, some shouting “Viva Venezuela!”

From a different angle, Reuters footage captures the same figure on the back of a motorbike driving down a busy Caracas street as protesters run in its wake.

Asked by CNN’s Isa Soares earlier this week what would happen if she were arrested, Machado acknowledged the risk.

“We’re taking it one day at a time, Isa. I’m very aware of my responsibility,” she said. “But we also know that this is a cost that exceeds each and every one of us. So we have to do this. I shall be with our people tomorrow.”

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino condemned Machado’s apparent detention on X shortly after the news broke. “Panama demands full freedom for @MariaCorinaYA, as well as respect for her personal integrity,” Mulino wrote. “The dictatorial regime is responsible for her life!”

The United States said it was “feeling very closely” the reports of Machado’s detention. “We condemn such arrests, repression and intimidation, which cannot hide the fact that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is the true winner of the July 28 election,” the White House said in a statement.

After Machado’s release, US President-elect Donald Trump said she and opposition leader Gonzalez were “peacefully expressing the voices and the WILL of the Venezuelan people.”

“These freedom fighters should not be harmed and MUST remain SAFE and ALIVE!” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

Rival groups of protesters gathered across Venezuela’s capital Caracas on the eve of the inauguration.

In several parts of Caracas, crowds of opposition supporters slowly grew Thursday, with people waving flags and calling for libertad (freedom). Supporters were also seen holding “Gonzalez Presidente” signs and blowing vuvuzelas.

Reuters reports that an estimated 7,000 attended the opposition rally in Caracas.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela’s largest barrio Petare, Maduro supporters also gathered in what they called a “march for peace and joy.”

Gonzalez, who has vowed to return to Caracas this week despite the threat of arrest, started the day in the Dominican Republic where he met with Dominican President Luis Abinader and other former regional leaders.

“We Venezuelans will soon regain our freedom,” Gonzalez said in a speech in Santo Domingo.

This story has been updated with further developments.