Thousands in Venezuela protest Maduro's victory claim

CARACAS:

Thousands of people, led by a top opposition figure, gathered across Venezuela on Saturday to protest the widely disputed reelection of President Nicolas Maduro, as his supporters responded to his own call for competing rallies.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado thrilled supporters in Caracas when she made a surprise appearance in a truck bearing a banner reading "Venezuela has won!" She spent much of the week in hiding after what she said was a threat by Maduro of arrest.

Machado had backed the candidacy of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia after she herself was banned from running, and supporters say he won 67 percent of the vote. He was not immediately seen on Saturday.

Backers cried out "Freedom!" as Machado's truck passed by.

"We have never been so strong as today," she told the crowd, adding that "the regime has never been weaker."

Adrian Pacheco, a 26-year-old shopkeeper, told AFP, "Seeing her gives me hope, despite the threats. She is a light for Venezuela."

But opposition supporters were fearful, with memories still fresh of a wave of repression under the Maduro government in 2017 that left some 100 people dead.

"We have dead, wounded, detainees, missing people... People know it. They are afraid," said Katiusca Camargo, an activist in Caracas.

Maduro called on his supporters to turn out for "the mother of all marches" later in the afternoon. He accused the opposition of plotting attacks against security forces during their rallies.