Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said she is in hiding and that she fears for her freedom and for her life, in an op-ed published on Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.
Machado, who is the main force behind the presidential candidacy of former ambassador Edmundo González, emphasized that Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro lost Sunday’s election and that she can prove it.
“I write this from hiding, fearing for my life, my freedom and that of my fellow countrymen under the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro,” Machado wrote in an editorial titled: I can prove that Maduro got trounced.
“Mr. Maduro did not win the Venezuelan presidential election on Sunday. He lost by a landslide to Edmundo González, 67% to 30%. I know this to be true because I can prove it. I have receipts obtained directly from more than 80% of the country’s polling stations.”
Machado has not been seen for 24 hours.
The op-ed was published as the Caracas regime steps up its repressive campaign in the country to contain the protests sparked by the announcement from its tightly controlled electoral agency declaring Maduro the winner of the election with more than 51% of the vote.
The announcement, however, has been questioned around the world, with a large group of countries, including the U.S., demanding the regime produce official election documents showing that Maduro in fact obtained the highest number of votes.
So far, the regime has announced that it has detained more than 1,000 people while human rights organizations have reported that at least 11 people have died and dozens have been injured. El Foro Penal, a non-governmental organization that watches over the rights of political prisoners, reported earlier on Wednesday that it has been able to independently confirm that at least 672 people have been arrested.
Those arrested include opposition leader Freddy Superlano, and his friends and family members fear he is being tortured.
In her column, Machado said the Venezuelan opposition was aware that Maduro was going to cheat in the election.
“We have known for years what tricks the regime uses, and we are well aware that the National Electoral Council is entirely under its control. It was unthinkable that Mr. Maduro would concede defeat,” she wrote in the opinion piece.
She also recounted the large number of illegal, unjust or just plain abusive actions undertaken by the regime to sabotage the opposition’s campaign, including banning her from holding office after she won the opposition’s primary election with 92% of the vote, which made her the top leader of the country’s democratic forces.
Following the CNE’s announcement that Maduro won the election, the Venezuelan opposition has concentrated its efforts on digitizing and publishing on the internet the voting records showing that González won with nearly 70% of the votes, documents that the regime has so far been unable to produce.
