Venezuelans stage global protests, seek recognition of election victory

CARACAS, Venezuela – Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets Saturday in protests across their country and in cities around the world, demanding that authoritarian president Nicolás Maduro recognize the results of last month’s election they say he lost.

In the capital, Caracas, and all over Venezuela, protesters carried the vote tally receipts collected by the opposition showing that their candidate, Edmundo González, won more than twice as many votes as Maduro in the July 28 election.

In hundreds of cities, in countries as far away as Australia, South Korea and Madagascar, large and small groups of Venezuelans carried flags and signs pleading for a “free Venezuela.”

Opposition leaders called for a global day of protest to demand that the government recognize what they describe as a historic electoral win, an outpouring of frustration at an autocrat who has held power for more than a decade and presided over a crippling economic crisis and a mass exodus of more than 7 million people. The United States and several other countries have recognized that González clearly beat the strongman in the July 28 vote.

But Maduro and the electoral council he controls maintain that he won the election, while refusing to release the precinct-level results. Instead of meeting demands from global leaders to publish the vote tallies, he has doubled down and escalated repression against the opposition. More than 2,400 people have been arrested since the election, and at least two dozen people have been killed in and around protests in Venezuela.

The mass arrest campaign has resulted in widespread fear among Venezuelans, especially as state agents crack down on the use of WhatsApp, X and other crucial forms of social media.

But as they flooded the streets in the nation’s capital Saturday, Venezuelans shouted “we are not afraid!”

“Today the world knows what we Venezuelans are made of … we awakened a country,” María Corina Machado, the driving force of the opposition’s campaign, said in a video message Saturday morning. “Now comes a new stage. We have to stand firm and united. They try to scare us, to divide us, to paralyze us, but they cannot.”

Machado, who has been in hiding in recent days due to the risk of arrest, emerged in the crowd in a black hood Saturday and stepped onto a truck carrying opposition political leaders through the rally.

Those in the sea of people handed their vote tally sheets to the leader, along with rosaries, drawings and even a pair of angel wings made out of the vote receipts.

“We are here reminding those who have confiscated power that they have to release it. The people have chosen, and we won,” said Maria Vallera, a retired 80-year-old in the crowd. “It’s a dictatorship, what we have here. He refuses to recognize what the people want. He knows he has lost the people.”

The streets in Caracas appeared heavily guarded by an unusually large police and military presence. But near the center of the opposition’s demonstrations, few uniformed officers could be seen, raising concerns about whether state agents might be in the crowds in civilian clothing. Videos circulating on social media showed security forces responding with tear gas to protests in the city of Maracay. In the state of Zulia, authorities reportedly detained a priest as he led a group of demonstrators in prayer.

Those in the protests, in Caracas and across the country, knew what could await them if they were detained – or if security forces began repressing crowds of demonstrators. Maduro faces an investigation in the International Criminal Court for allegations of torture and the extrajudicial killing of political opponents. A United Nations fact-finding mission accused Maduro and his inner circle of ordering and coordinating arbitrary detentions, disappearances and killings that constitute “crimes against humanity.”

One young woman, speaking on the phone during a protest in Caracas, could be heard telling someone that she didn’t plan on staying long. “At the last protests, the police shot me with pellets and it still hurts.”

Dick Guanique, a 69-year-old union leader in Saturday’s protest in Caracas, said fear has long been a part of life in Venezuela.

“Every day we are afraid,” Guanique said. “But here we are betting on our future.”

He said he hoped Saturday’s protests would be a show of force from the masses who know “that we won the elections, that these people have tried to steal the elections, but they will not succeed.”

“Today we are showing that we are not terrorists. We are peacefully exercising our right. We voted, and we won.”