MIAMI – With election results in dispute, Venezuelans continued worldwide protests on Saturday. Thousands were at a rally at the FPL Solar Amphitheater, at Bayfront Park, in downtown Miami.
For nearly three weeks, white-clad demonstrators have demanded that the ruling socialist party officials who control Venezuela’s National Electoral Council release the full breakdown of the votes of the July 28 presidential election.
The council declared Nicolás Maduro the winner with 52% of the vote. In contrast, the opposition released a breakdown on a public site declaring Edmundo González, a retired diplomat, as the winner with 67% of the vote.
“They will not be able to cover up the reality,” González wrote on X.
The oil-rich country’s foreign relations reflect the tensions among the world’s powers. The U.S. recognized González as the victor. Russia and China did not and congratulated Maduro.
While dissent has been deadly in Venezuela, Maduro engaged in social media feuds with Elon Musk and Eleonora “Lele” Pons, a Venezuelan-American social media star born in Caracas and raised in Miami.
“You’re not going to shut me up,” Pons wrote in Spanish to her 32.4 million followers on TikTok.
The drama did not distract human rights activists. The International Criminal Court is investigating reports of extrajudicial killings and torture in Venezuela. A United Nations mission reported “crimes against humanity.”
Venezuelan lawmakers loyal to Maduro are preparing to target activists with nongovernmental organizations that have gathered evidence to report that the Venezuelan police, military, and judicial system have criminalized dissent. The opposition reports prosecutors are redefining political activism as treason, freedom of expression as inciting hate, and vandalism as terrorism.
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González has been under protection, in hiding. Maduro has continued sharing videos of his public remarks about love and peace, staged televised events, and promoted the “popular consultation” of Aug. 25, in Venezuela, as a show of his respect for democracy. María Corina Machado, a leader of the opposition in Venezuela, made a public appearance Saturday.
“They try to scare us to divide us, to paralyze us, but they cannot,” Machado said in Spanish in a defiant video.
The UN estimates the Venezuelan diaspora is over 7.7 million. The opposition warns many more are planning to leave with Maduro in power for six more years.
Jesus Aguilar, 21, a theology student protesting against Maduro on Saturday in Caracas, told Reuters that he has thought about leaving the country. With fossil fuel income, Maduro and his socialist party have won over the military to concentrate power for a quarter of a century.
“With this government, there are no possibilities for growth,” Aguilar told Reuters in Caracas.
Veronica Guedez, 19, and her mother Janett Hurtado, 57, told The Associated Press they moved to Mexico two years ago. They said they were protesting on Saturday in downtown Mexico City because the July 28 election was stolen and they were reacting to the repression that followed. It has affected their friends and family.
“It pains us to see what’s happening,” Guedez said.
Saturday report in Miami