CARACAS — Opponents and supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro are planning to rally on Tuesday amid widespread protests and clashes following a weekend election that the longtime socialist won despite the opposition claiming a landslide victory.
The renewed instability has drawn mixed reactions from the international community, with the United States considering further sanctions as it sees no credibility in Maduro’s reelection, while China and Russia have congratulated him.
The protests began after the electoral commission announced on Monday that Maduro had won a third term with 51 percent of the vote, extending a quarter-century of rule by the “Chavista” movement.
The opposition, which sees the electoral body as in the pocket of the dictatorship, said 73% of the vote tallies it had received showed that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez received more than twice as many votes as Maduro.
Venezuela’s opposition party Voluntad Popular announced on Tuesday that its national coordinator, Freddy Sperlano, had been detained.
The party posted, then deleted, a video showing Superano and two others being stopped outside a gated building and forced into a car by armed men dressed in black as neighbours yelled for them to stop.
The video was also posted to local media.
Attorney General Tarek Saab did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Superano was being held and on what charges.
At least six people were killed across the country in incidents related to the election count and related protests, according to human rights group Foro Penal.
Some protesters blocked roads, set fires and hurled Molotov cocktails at police, including near the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas.
“We are tired of this government. We want change. We want to be free in Venezuela. We want our families back,” one masked protester said, referring to about a third of Venezuelans who have fled the country in recent years.
“I fight for my country’s democracy. They stole the election,” another said.
Police armed with shields and batons fired tear gas to break up some protests in Caracas and the city of Maracay.
Many protesters were on motorbikes blocking roads and some were wearing Venezuelan flags and some were covering their faces with scarves to protect against tear gas.
The government calls them violent agitators.
“We have seen films like this before,” Maduro said at the presidential palace, vowing that security forces would keep the peace. “We have monitored all acts of violence incited by the far right.”
The military has long supported him, and there has been no sign of the generals defecting from the government.
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino described the protests as a “coup.”
“With the coup underway, President Nicolas Maduro, together with the people who elected him president, all the institutions, the Bolivarian army and democratic institutions, has once again risen to thwart the coup,” Padrino said on state television on Tuesday. “We will defeat the coup.”
In Coro, the capital of Falcon state, protesters cheered and danced as they toppled a statue of Maduro’s former mentor, Hugo Chavez, who served as president from 1999 to 2013.
A local monitoring group, the Venezuelan Observatory of the Conflict, said 187 protests had been recorded in 20 states by 6pm on Monday, with “numerous acts of repression and violence” by paramilitary and security forces.
Saab said on state television that 749 members of the security forces had been arrested in Aragua state and two had been killed.
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Maduro, 61, a former trade union leader and foreign minister, won elections after Chavez’s death in 2013 and was re-elected in 2018. The opposition claims both elections were rigged.
He has presided over economic collapse, mass emigration and a deterioration in relations with the West, including U.S. and EU sanctions that have further damaged an already struggling oil industry.
Independent pollsters have said Maduro’s victory was hard to believe, and Washington and Latin American governments have questioned the results and called for a full vote count.
“Even (Maduro) doesn’t believe in the fraud of the elections he is celebrating,” Argentine President Javier Milley said.
Peru ordered Venezuelan diplomats to leave within 72 hours, citing “the grave and arbitrary decision taken today by the Venezuelan regime.”
But amid typical global divisions, allies including Russia, China and some left-led Latin American countries supported Maduro.
“China, as always, firmly supports Venezuela’s efforts to safeguard its national sovereignty, national dignity and social stability, and firmly supports Venezuela’s legitimate claims to oppose external interference,” Xi said in the message.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has been spearheading Gonzalez’s campaign despite being barred from running in the election, called for the marches on Tuesday.
“Dear Venezuelan people, we come together tomorrow, united as a family, with our determination to make every vote count and to defend the truth,” she said.
The government is also planning rallies in support of Maduro, and many Venezuelans fear a return to violence and bloodshed as seen in recent tumultuous Venezuelans’ history.
