President Nicolas Maduro spoke last week following the presidential elections, saying that Mara Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzlez should go to prison.
Source: Bloomberg
Humiliated and Furious, Maduro Locks Up 2,000 Venezuelans in Fiercest Crackdown of His Rule
Venezuela risks becoming a police state as its socialist regime fights to remain in power after contested election.
Long gone is the light-hearted, almost avuncular, version of Nicolás Maduro who attempted to charm the world in the lead-up to Venezuela’s presidential election. The man who took the stage at Miraflores Palace last week was exhausted — and angry.
How severely he miscalculated the opposition’s power was on full display for the world. Protests against what many say is Maduro’s fraudulent win swept the capital of Caracas, even as the government had started arresting Venezuelans in the fiercest crackdown of his 11-year rule. His rival, the ever-popular María Corina Machado, and her party had published a more detailed accounting of the voting results than the government ever had in the past, showing their candidate, Edmundo González, won by a landslide. Pressure to share election results mounted from even Maduro’s closest allies abroad. The prospect of sanctions relief disappeared, and so did the little legitimacy he had left.