Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has been detained in Caracas after joining a protest against President Nicolas Maduro’s planned inauguration for a third term, according to her team.
Machado’s political group Comando con Venezuela wrote on X that she was “violently intercepted” while exiting the rally on Thursday.
“Regime troops shot at the motorcycles that were transporting her,” the group said.
Machado’s appearance at the rally was her first public appearance in months, since a government crackdown on Venezeulan opposition figures and their supporters last year.
“I am here,” she posted on X earlier on Thursday, along with a video of herself at the protest, wearing jeans and the colors of the Venezuelan flag.
Asked what would happen if she were arrested earlier this week, Machado acknowledged the risk.
Rival protests throughout Caracas
Rival groups of demonstrators had gathered throughout Venezuela’s capital Caracas on Thursday, the eve of the inauguration.
In several parts of Caracas on Thursday, crowds of opposition supporters slowly swelled with people waving flags and calling for libertad (freedom). Supporters were also seen holding “Gonzalez Presidente” signs and blowing vuvuzelas.
Meanwhile in Venezuela’s largest barrio Petare, Maduro supporters also assembled in what they call a “march for peace and joy.”
Maduro was proclaimed winner of the presidential election in July by electoral authorities under the tight control of the ruling Socialist Party.
But Venezuela’s opposition, led by Machado, published thousands of voting tallies claiming that their own candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, had actually won the vote with 67% against Maduro’s 30%.
Maduro is scheduled to attend a swearing-in ceremony on January 10.
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 the Dominican President Luis Abinader and other regional former leaders.
“We Venezuelans will soon regain our freedom,” Gonzalez said in a speech in Santo Domingo.
