How Maduro Harasses Venezuela’s Opposition Ahead of Elections

With less than two weeks to go before the election, Machado and her team pressed on, planning another rally in a pro-government stronghold, where they knew little would go according to plan.

Over the course of the day Wednesday, her team was stopped at more than half a dozen police and military checkpoints, finding the road blocked by asphalt trucks. The local vendor hired to set up the speakers and stage for her rally in Guanare was detained by police, his trucks and equipment confiscated.

There would be no stage, but there would be a sea of ​​people: tens of thousands of supporters filling the streets of this city about 435 kilometers southwest of Caracas to hear Machado speak from a dump truck.

“When I go to an event, I don’t know if I have a stage, I don’t know if I have sound, I don’t know if I have transportation,” Machado told The Washington Post. “We’re busting all the myths of a political campaign.”

These are the logistical headache when taking on an autocrat.

Since taking office, Machado has been mobilizing the crowd for the opposition. won a primary last year with more than 92 percent of the vote. Venezuela’s Supreme Court, controlled by Maduro, has barred her from holding public office until 2030. So instead, she’s promoting and campaigning for a stand-in: Edmundo González, a 74-year-old former diplomat.

Polls show González ahead of Maduro by double digits. But it is Machado, the longtime critic of Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, the founder of Venezuela’s socialist state, who the crowds have come to see.

For the past decade, the authoritarian government has banned Machado from leaving the country or traveling by plane. The low-budget opposition campaign has little access to government-controlled media. Highways in Caracas are lined with large billboards promoting Maduro; none promote the opposition. The campaign does not distribute promotional materials or coordinate buses for rallygoers, they said. It depends on volunteers, social media and word of mouth.

“We don’t have flyers, we don’t have posters,” Machado said. “I don’t offer people anything, but people offer us their stuff — their car, their house.”

Six staff members, including the campaign manager and the head of communications, have led the effort from the Argentine embassy in Caracas, where they were holed up for more than four months to avoid arrest warrants. The result is a campaign that is being conducted via Zoom, WhatsApp and social media.

Two other campaign organizers are in jail. Foro Penal, a legal organization focused on human rights, has counted 103 arrests in the past year.

Many are not campaign workers or volunteers. They are truck drivers, hotel owners, sound engineers. Since the official campaign began on July 4, the government has closed, fined or otherwise punished at least a dozen restaurants and hotels for hosting González or Machado. González says he now travels with a box lunch to avoid endangering other people by feeding him.

“It’s the opposite of the Midas touch,” said Alfredo Romero, the president of Foro Penal. Everything Machado touches can be shut down or confiscated, it seems.

The Venezuelan Ministry of Communications did not respond to a request for comment.

Authorities last week arrested a businessman in Táchira who had hosted Machado and her team at his home two weeks earlier, his lawyer said. This week in Carabobo, police arrested the driver of Machado’s truck.

“It is a pattern that is repeated in every state,” said Alby Colmenares, a campaign organizer in Carabobo.

On the way to Carabobo, Machado’s team encountered another checkpoint. Machado got out of her vehicle, walked past the police, and climbed onto the back of a motorcycle.

“We are doing this for you,” she told the officers. “You will see. In 15 days, Venezuela will change.”

The arrest of Machado’s security chief, Melciades Ávila, followed their visit to a restaurant in the state of Aragua. Two women began shouting at Machado; Ávila spoke to the women, according to video footage of the incident, and then quickly escorted the candidates to a safe location.

Ávila was accused by the government of gender-based violence. He was released late the next day.

Machado was preparing for a rally on Wednesday in Guanare, the Portuguese state where Chavez once won one of his highest vote margins.

Rafael José Salcedo, the 55-year-old owner of a local business that sound equipment for weddings, graduations and quinceañeras, was parked in the spot where Machado planned to speak, when more than 20 police officers approached.

One officer told him not to turn on the sound equipment.

“I haven’t unloaded anything yet, I haven’t put anything on the ground,” Salcedo responded, telling The Post. “I’m waiting for them to give me the permit.”

The officer told him they were taking him to the police station. When he asked why, Salcedo said he was told, “These are the orders.”

Salcedo, His brother and a friend were held for about six hours, he said, until Machado’s event was expected to end. Agents confiscated his two trucks and his stage and sound equipment — his livelihood for more than 30 years — and told him he would have to go to Caracas after the election. to get them back. Without his equipment, Salcedo is now unemployed.

Machado’s campaign, meanwhile, was a matter of improvisation.

“It is very complicated to arrange sound for an event with more than 50,000 people within half an hour,” said Julio Balza, Communications Officer. “People are afraid to rent us the sound or the press van. We work with what we have.”

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people flocked to Guanare’s main street to hear Machado.

“They always do this, they take down the sound system and she always finds her way,” one woman said. A drone flew overhead; locals suspected the government. A few blocks away, Diosdado Cabello, a lawmaker close to Maduro, was holding his own campaign event.

Octavio Zambrano, a 50-year-old craftsman, waited in a wheelchair outside his home to catch a glimpse of Machado in her trailer.

“If she doesn’t stop, that’s okay — we’re still going to the rally,” he said. “She’s very smart. She knows how to dodge what Maduro throws at her.”

Ultimately, Machado didn’t need a podium. At 4:30 p.m., she appeared atop her van as the crowd waved Venezuelan flags and trumpeted vuvuzelas. Finally, she climbed onto the roof of a truck and spoke.

“They blocked the streets and we overcame all the obstacles,” she said. “They cut the power and took our sound away, we do it a capella.”

The next morning, Machado woke up early to return to Caracas for a friend’s funeral. When she and her team stepped outside, they found their cars vandalized, one drained of oil and the other’s brake lines cut.