Venezuela’s opposition leader calls for global movement to ‘rescue’ country

The Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, has called for a global movement, similar to the international campaign against apartheid in South Africa, to help rescue her country from Nicolás Maduro’s “criminal tyranny”.

Speaking to foreign journalists as Maduro stepped up his post-election crackdown, Machado said she hoped Venezuela’s struggle for democracy would become “a world cause” just as South Africa’s did in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

“We want to engage not only with governments but with the people. We want democrats from all around the world – Europeans, Asians, Africans, [and] of course Latin Americans and North Americans – to understand how important this moment is,” said Machado, a charismatic conservative who is the central figure in the opposition battle to end Maduro’s 11-year rule.

The worldwide anti-apartheid campaign did not in itself bring about South Africa’s transition to democracy but global pressure and the economic, academic and cultural boycott movement is understood to have played an important role in freeing the country from white minority rule in the early 1990s.

Venezuela’s opposition says its candidate in the 28 July presidential election, the ex-diplomat Edmundo González, won a landslide and has published detailed vote breakdowns from more than 25,000 of 30,027 voting booths which seem to confirm that.

But Maduro insists he won and on Friday a Venezuelan judge issued an arrest warrant for González, who ran in Machado’s place after she was banned from the election.

That move was met with “deep concern” by the leftwing governments of Brazil and Colombia whose presidents have been trying to promote dialogue towards a peaceful solution. The UK’s minister for Latin America and the Caribbean, Jenny Chapman, called the warrant “unacceptable and politically motivated”.

González’s whereabouts is unclear and his lawyer has said he is moving “from house to house” to avoid capture. Several important opposition figures have been arrested in recent days, including Machado’s close confidant, the lawyer Perkins Rocha. On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch denounced the “shockingly brutal” crackdown in Venezuela that has seen more than 1,700 people jailed, including about 114 children and teens.

But Machado insisted she would not be going into exile.

“Every day that goes by is harder and riskier, that is true. We are facing a ruthless regime that is capable of anything … they have no limits in their cruelty. Nonetheless, I believe my duty is to stay in Venezuela,” she said.

Maduro’s apparent determination to stay in power – and the continued support of the armed forces and authoritarian allies such as China and Russia – has frustrated hopes for political change after one of the worst peacetime economic collapses in modern history.

“He will remain president de facto,” the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, conceded last week as he announced that its states did not accept Maduro’s claim to victory.

Maduro’s decision to put one of his most hardline allies, Diosdado Cabello, in charge of the interior ministry suggests he plans to double down on repression designed to snuff out the latest challenge to his rule before being sworn in for a third term in January.

However, Machado said there was still life in the opposition’s attempt to negotiate a peaceful and orderly transition towards a new government led by González.

“I don’t think we are in a stalemate. I think there are things moving and some [of those things] are not obvious but they are [happening],” Machado said, adding that some “terrified” figures from within Maduro’s political movement had contacted her campaign because they understood the situation was unsustainable.

“We have never been stronger than we are today and the regime has never been weaker,” Machado added, with growing international consensus over “the magnitude of the [electoral] meltdown” Maduro had suffered.

“He lost in every single state … in places where the regime used to win with 80 or 90% of the vote, they lost … In poor areas, in rich areas, in rural areas, in urban areas, all around the country,” she said. “We are not the same country we were a year ago – two months ago [even].”