Venezuelan opposition chief Maria Corina Machado addressed a mass rally within the capital, Caracas, defying authorities calls to arrest her.
Ms Machado went into hiding earlier this week after accusing President Nicolás Maduro of dishonest opposition candidate Edmundo González into a transparent victory within the presidential election.
The president in flip accused Ms. Machado of stockpiling violence and stated she and Mr. Gonzalez ought to face many years in jail.
The electoral fee, managed by Mr Maduro’s allies, insists he gained final Sunday’s vote with 52% of the vote, however unbiased observers say it lacks transparency.
The fee has not launched a full breakdown of outcomes. The opposition stated their very own vote counts confirmed they gained the election by a large margin. Pre-election polls confirmed a transparent victory for the challenger.
On Saturday, Ms. Machado addressed 1000’s of supporters in Caracas from a truck carrying a “Venezuela Wins” banner.
“We now have by no means been stronger,” she instructed the group, including, “The regime has by no means been weaker… It has misplaced all legitimacy”.
The opposition chief, who was blocked from collaborating within the election, has been in hiding for a number of days.
Earlier this week, Ms. Machado wrote within the Wall Avenue Journal that she, like different opposition leaders, “feared for her life.”
She was greeted with cheers of “freedom, freedom” and was accompanied by a number of different opposition leaders besides Mr Gonzalez.
In one other video, he urged supporters to “reply to the regime’s assaults with hope, concord and peace.”
Venezuelan safety forces have spent the previous few days making an attempt to comprise mass protests. At the least 11 folks died in clashes with police.
Greater than 1,000 opposition demonstrators have been arrested.
The federal government is dealing with rising worldwide stress. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated on Friday there was “overwhelming proof” that Mr Gonzalez gained the election.
His intervention got here because the presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia all known as on Venezuela to launch detailed election outcomes.
Different regional governments, together with Argentina, Costa Rica, Panama and Uruguay, have expressed issues in regards to the vote.
However Maduro has help from allies in Russia, China and Cuba.
He has requested Venezuela’s Supreme Court docket to assessment the vote to substantiate the consequence, giving him one other six years in energy.
The opposition stated the court docket was within the palms of presidency loyalists and would delay the discharge of the statistics. Mr. Gonzalez boycotted the court docket proceedings on Friday.
