Anti-Maduro protests spread as Venezuelan opposition claims victory

By Deisy Buitrago and Mayela Armas

CARACAS (Reuters) -Protests in Venezuela spread on Tuesday as anger grew over the awarding of Sunday’s election to President Nicolas Maduro despite opposition claims that they had clinched a landslide victory.

The protests began after the election board declared on Monday that Maduro had won a third term with 51% of votes to extend the “Chavista” movement’s quarter-century rule.

The opposition, which considers the election body to be in the pocket of a dictatorial government, said the 73% of vote tallies to which it has access showed its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez had more than twice as many votes as Maduro.

The renewed instability brought divided international reaction: the United States said it was considering fresh sanctions on individuals linked to the election unless there was greater transparency about the vote, while China and Russia congratulated Maduro.

As well as new sanctions, Maduro’s move could spur yet more migration from a country that has shed a third of its population in recent years.

But with no sign the military will break from its long-standing support for Maduro, and with previous cycles of anti-government protests and sanctions failing to dislodge him, the mechanisms open to the opposition appear limited.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from running in the election but spearheaded the campaign for Gonzalez, was expected to appear with him at a gathering in Caracas on Tuesday.

“Edmundo is the president. We know he won the election,” said 27-year-old brokerage worker Andrea Garcia as she waited with thousands of others for Machado’s and Gonzalez’s appearance. “We want to live in the Venezuela that our parents had, where there wasn’t hunger in the streets.”

“(Maduro) can’t govern with 80% of the country against him.”

Opposition protesters were also marching in the cities of Valencia, Maracay, San Cristobal, Maracaibo and Barquisimeto. In some locations Reuters witnesses saw marchers being attacked by security forces.

In Valencia, a protester spray-painted “fraud” on the road.

Pro-Maduro demonstrations have been organized for later on Tuesday.

At least six people had been killed around the country in incidents related to the election count or associated protests, according to rights group Foro Penal.

On Monday protesters blocked roads, lit fires and threw petrol bombs at police, and police in Caracas and Maracay fired tear gas.

In Coro, capital of Falcon state, on the Caribbean coast west of Caracas, protesters on Monday cheered and danced when they tore down a statue depicting former President Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s mentor who ruled from 1999-2013.

The government calls them violent agitators.

“We’ve seen this movie before,” Maduro said from the presidential palace on Monday, pledging that security forces would keep the peace. “We have been following all of the acts of violence promoted by the extreme right.”

Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino described the protests as a “coup.”

“There is a coup in progress so President Nicolas Maduro has stepped up to stop it again and with him the people who elected him president, all the institutions, the Bolivarian armed forces and the democratic institutions,” Padrino said on state television on Tuesday. “We will defeat the coup.”

A local monitoring group, the Venezuelan Conflict Observatory, said it had registered 187 protests in 20 states by 6 p.m. on Monday with “numerous acts of repression and violence” carried out by paramilitary groups and security forces.

Attorney General Tarek Saab said on state TV there had been 749 arrests and two deaths of security force members in Aragua state.

Opposition party Voluntad Popular’s national coordinator Freddy Superlano had been detained, the party said on X.

It posted and then deleted a video showing Superlano and two others being stopped outside a gated building and hustled into a car by armed men clad in black as neighbors screamed for them to stop. The video was also posted by local media.

Saab did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether Superlano was detained and on what charges. He did not mention Superlano in his remarks.

INTERNATIONAL DIVISION

Maduro, a 61-year-old former union leader and foreign minister, won election after Chavez’s death in 2013 and was re-elected in 2018. The opposition said both votes were rigged.

He has presided over an economic collapse, mass migration, and deteriorating relations with the West, including U.S. and EU sanctions that have crippled an already struggling oil industry.

Independent pollsters have called Maduro’s victory implausible, while governments in Washington and around Latin America questioned the results and urged a full tabulation of votes.

“Not even (Maduro) believes the electoral scam he is celebrating,” said Argentina’s President Javier Milei.

Peru ordered Venezuelan diplomats to leave within 72 hours, citing “serious and arbitrary decisions made today by the Venezuelan regime.”

But in a familiar global division, allies including Russia, China and some leftist-led Latin American nations backed Maduro.

Many Venezuelans have said their decision whether to join the exodus from the country had been dependent on the election.

“It feels like I no longer have anything to do here in Venezuela,” said 23-year-old graduate Jorge Salcedo in Caracas.

“We’ll start from scratch in another country… We live in a country with repression, and we live in a country under dictatorship. It was our last chance.”