Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado speaks onstage during an event to meet with members of Venezuela’s community residing in Chile, in Santiago, Chile.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Pope Leo XIV. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Venezuelan Opposition leader María Corina Machado appeared in public for the first time in 11 months early Thursday (December 11, 2025) morning, when she waved to supporters from a hotel balcony in Norway’s capital hours after her daughter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf.

Ms. Machado and her supporters then sang Venezuela’s national anthem before she left the hotel to shake their hands. People erupted in cheers and began chanting, “Freedom! Freedom!” and “Thank you! Thank you!”

Ms. Machado, dressed in jeans and a puffer jacket, spent several minutes outside the hotel, where she was joined by members of her family and several of her closest aides.

Ms. Machado had been in hiding since January 9, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters in a protest in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. She had been expected to attend the award ceremony on Wednesday (December 10, 2025) in Oslo, where heads of state and her family were among those waiting to see her.

Ms. Machado said in an audio recording of a phone call published on the Nobel website that she would not be able to arrive in time for the ceremony but that many people had “risked their lives” for her to arrive in Oslo.

Her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the prize in her place.

“She wants to live in a free Venezuela, and she will never give up on that purpose,” Ms. Sosa said. “That is why we all know, and I know, that she will be back in Venezuela very soon.”

Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee, told the award ceremony that “María Corina Machado has done everything in her power to be able to attend the ceremony here today — a journey in a situation of extreme danger.”

“Although she will not be able to reach this ceremony and today’s events, we are profoundly happy to confirm that she is safe, and that she will be with us here in Oslo,” he said to applause.

Ms. Machado, in the audio recording published on the Nobel website, many people had “risked their lives” for her to arrive in Oslo.

“I am very grateful to them, and this is a measure of what this recognition means to the Venezuelan people,” she said, before indicating that she was about to board a plane.

Ms. Machado said that “since this is a prize for all Venezuelans, I believe that it will be received by them. And as soon as I arrive, I will be able to embrace all my family and my children that I’ve have not seen for two years and so many Venezuelans, Norwegians that I know that share our struggle and our fight.”

Show of solidarity

Prominent Latin American figures attended on Wednesday (December 10, 2025) in a signal of solidarity with Ms. Machado, including Argentine President Javier Milei, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino and Paraguayan President Santiago Peña.

The 58-year-old Ms. Machado’s win for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in her South American nation was announced on October 10. Mr. Frydnes said that Venezuela has evolved into a “brutal authoritarian state”, and he described Ms. Machado as “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in recent Latin American history.”

Ms. Machado won an Opposition primary election and intended to challenge President Nicolás Maduro in last year’s presidential election, but the government barred her from running for office. Retired diplomat Edmundo González took her place.

The lead-up to the election on July 28, 2024, saw widespread repression, including disqualifications, arrests and human rights violations. That increased after the country’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, declared the incumbent the winner.

Mr. González, who sought asylum in Spain last year after a Venezuelan court issued a warrant for his arrest, attended Wednesday’s (December 10, 2025) ceremony.

U.N. human rights officials and many independent rights groups have expressed concerns about the situation in Venezuela, and called for Mr. Maduro to be held accountable for the crackdown on dissent.

Fight for freedom

“More than anything, what we Venezuelans can offer the world is the lesson forged through this long and difficult journey — that to have democracy, we must be willing to fight for freedom,” Ms. Sosa said as she delivered the lecture written for the occasion by her mother.

The speech did not refer to the current tensions between Washington and Caracas, as U.S. President Donald Trump continues a military operation in the Caribbean that has killed Venezuelans in international waters and threatens to strike Venezuela. Ms. Machado has consistently endorsed Trump’s strategy toward Venezuela.

Among many “heroes of this journey” honoured in the lecture, Ms. Sosa mentioned “the leaders around the world who joined us and defended our cause”, but did not elaborate.

Mr. Frydnes said of authoritarian leaders like Mr. Maduro that “your power is not permanent. Your violence will not prevail over people who rise and resist.”

“Mr. Maduro, accept the election result and step down,” he said.

Past winners unable to attend

Five past Nobel Peace Prize laureates were detained or imprisoned at the time of the award, according to the prize’s official website, most recently Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi in 2023 and Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski in 2022.

The others were Liu Xiaobo of China in 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar in 1991 and Carl von Ossietzky of Germany in 1935.

Published – December 11, 2025 10:52 am IST

Venezuelan Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday (October 10, 2025) for promoting democratic rights in her country and her struggle to achieve a transition to democracy, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.

Maria Corina Machado (58) was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on October 7, 1967. She is an industrial engineer by training, and her father was a prominent businessman in Venezuela’s steel industry. Her upper-class roots have made her a target of criticism from Venezuela’s governing socialist party.

Maria Corina Machado went into ‘hiding’

Ms. Machado won a resounding victory in the Opposition’s primary election in 2023 and her rallies attracted large crowds, but a ban from holding public office prevented her from running for President against Nicolas Maduro in an election in 2024 and she went into hiding.

The country’s electoral authority and top court say Ms. Maduro, whose time in office has been marked by a deep economic and social crisis, won the election, though they have never published detailed tallies.

Ms. Machado emerged from hiding to make a brief appearance during a protest before Mr. Maduro’s inauguration in January. She was briefly arrested and then freed.

Political awakening

In 2002, while working in a steel and rebar maker owned by her family, she founded a group called Sumate — initially focused on vote monitoring but which evolved into a key Opposition group over time.

In 2012, two years after her family’s business was expropriated by the government of Hugo Chavez, she was a candidate for the first time in an Opposition primary to run against Chavez, a contest ultimately won by Henrique Capriles.

In 2023, she embarked on a fresh presidential run, fuelled by threadbare campaign events, mostly in smaller towns, which ultimately propelled her to victory in the party’s primary, winning more than 2 million votes.

Her campaign tour, undertaken by car or sometimes on foot, with limited resources, brought her closer to her supporters even as a government prohibition on her candidacy forced her party to pass the torch to ally Edmundo Gonzalez, a little-known former diplomat and academic.

Closeness with comrades

Mr. Gonzalez, currently exiled in Madrid, shared a video on social media where he can be seen talking to Ms. Machado and celebrating her Nobel Prize.

“I’m in shock. I can’t believe this… My God!” Ms. Machado can be heard saying through her cell phone.

Mr. Gonzalez, who sought diplomatic refuge and moved to Spain in September 2024 after claiming he could have been jailed or tortured had he stayed in Venezuela, has sought to maintain a close relationship with Ms. Machado. She has said they often chat about the “fight for liberty”.

Mr. Gonzalez was widely seen as the victor in the 2024 presidential election, but Mr. Maduro’s government declared him the winner and he has retained power. A number of countries do not recognise Mr. Maduro’s government as legitimate, including the U.S. and the European Union.

Advocate of liberal economic reforms

Ms. Machado advocates for liberal economic reforms, including the privatisation of state-owned enterprises such as PDVSA, Venezuela’s oil company. She also supports the creation of welfare programmes aimed at aiding the country’s poorest citizens.

Collective struggle

“I hope you understand this is a movement; this is an achievement of a whole society,” Ms. Machado said in a call where she was officially informed that she had won the Peace Prize.

Though sometimes criticised for being stubborn — even by her own mother — Ms. Machado rarely speaks about herself in public. Instead, she frames her campaign as a collective struggle for redemption and unity, aiming to inspire hope among Venezuelans weary of economic hardship and social decay.

Her political activism has come at a cost, leaving her isolated, as nearly all of her senior advisers have been detained or forced to leave the country. Ms. Machado herself has accused Mr. Maduro’s administration of operating as a “criminal mafia”.

Published – October 10, 2025 06:54 pm IST

Venezuela Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was arrested Thursday when her motorcycle convoy was fired upon by security forces as it departed an anti-government protest in Caracas, according to aides.

Also Read | Tensions mount in Venezuela ahead of Maduro’s presidential swearing-in

Ms. Machado emerged from months of hiding earlier Thursday to reappear in public as part of a last-ditch attempt to block President Nicolás Maduro from clinging to power.

Ms. Machado’s press team said in a social media post that security forces “violently intercepted” the convoy as it was leaving eastern Caracas.

“They wanted us to fight each other, but Venezuela is united, we are not afraid,” Ms. Machado shouted to a few hundred protesters from atop a truck in the capital moments before her arrest.

There were no immediate details on her whereabouts and Maduro’s government has yet to comment. But the shock arrest spurred calls for her immediate release from governments and leaders across Latin America and beyond.

Machado, 57, is a hardliner former lawmaker who stayed and fought against Maduro even after many of her allies in the opposition leadership fled, joining an exodus of some 7 million Venezuelans who’ve abandoned their homeland in recent years.

Loyalists who control the country’s judiciary banned her from running against Maduro last year. In a deft move, she backed an unknown outsider — retired diplomat Edmundo González — who crushed Maduro by a more than two-to-one margin, according to voting machine records collected by the opposition and validated by international observers.

González, invoking the title of president-elect recognized by the U.S. and other countries, demanded Machado’s release from exile.

“To the security forces, I warn you: don’t play with fire,” he said in a social media post from the Dominican Republic, where he met with President Luis Abinader and a delegation of former presidents from across Latin America.

The protests called for by Machado took place a day before the ruling party-controlled National Assembly is scheduled to swear in Maduro to a third six-year term despite credible evidence that he lost the presidential election.

There was a relatively small turnout for Thursday’s protests as riot police were deployed in force. Venezuelans who’ve witnessed Maduro’s security forces round up scores of opponents and regular bystanders since the July election were reluctant to mobilize in the same numbers as they have in the past.

“Of course, there’s fewer people,” said empanada vendor Miguel Contrera as National Guard soldiers carrying riot shields buzzed by on motorcycles. “There’s fear.”

Those demonstrators that did show up blocked a main avenue in one opposition stronghold. Many were senior citizens and dressed in red, yellow and blue, answering Machado’s call to wear the colors of the Venezuelan flag. All repudiated Maduro and said they would recognize González as Venezuela’s legitimate president.

The deployment of security forces as well as pro-government armed groups known as “colectivos” to intimidate opponents betrays a deep insecurity on the part of Maduro, said Javier Corrales, a Latin America expert at Amherst College.

Since the elections, the government has arrested more than 2,000 people — including as many as 10 Americans and other foreigners — who it claims have been plotting to oust Maduro and sow chaos in the oil rich South American nation. This week alone, masked gunmen arrested a former presidential candidate, a prominent free speech activist and even González’s son-in-law as he was taking his young children to school.

“It’s an impressive show of force but it’s also a sign of weakness,” said Corrales, who co-authored this month an article, “How Maduro Stole Venezuela’s Vote,” in the Journal of Democracy.

“Maduro is safe in office,” said Corrales, “but he and his allies recognize they are moving forward with a big lie and have no other way to justify what they are doing except by relying on the military.”

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, also stacked with government loyalists, declared Maduro the winner of the election. But unlike in previous contests, authorities did not provide any access to voting records or precinct-level results.

The opposition, however, collected tally sheets from 85% of electronic voting machines and posted them online. They showed that its candidate, González, had thrashed Maduro by a more than two-to-one margin. Experts from the United Nations and the Atlanta-based Carter Center, both invited by Maduro’s government to observe the election, have said the tally sheets published by the opposition are legitimate.

The U.S. and other governments have also recognized González as Venezuela’s president-elect. Even many of Maduro’s former leftist allies in Latin America plan to skip Friday’s swearing-in ceremony.

President Joe Biden, meeting González at the White House this week, praised the previously unknown retired diplomat for having “inspired millions.”

“The people of Venezuela deserve a peaceful transfer of power to the true winner of their presidential election,” Mr. Biden said following the meeting.

Ana Corina Sosa, daughter of Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, holds the Vaclav Havel human Rights Prize awarded at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg eastern France, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Council of Europe on Monday (September 30, 2024) awarded its 2024 rights prize to Venezuelan opposition figure Maria Corina Machado for her struggle for democracy under President Nicolas Maduro’s iron-fisted rule.

Ms. Machado said she was “deeply moved, honoured and grateful” to be the first Latin American to win the award, named after the late Czech dissident, playwright and post-communist president Vaclav Havel.

She is currently in hiding in Venezuela in the wake of presidential elections Mr. Maduro claims to have won, an outcome furiously contested by the opposition.

The award was received on her behalf at Council of Europe headquarters in Strasbourg by her daughter Ana.

“I want to dedicate this recognition to the millions of Venezuelans who, every day, embody Havel’s values and ideas,” Ms. Machado said in a video address.

Her movement had demonstrated “the victory of democrats over dictatorship”, she said, adding: “Today our struggle continues, because the truth persists until it prevails.”

Ms. Machado, 56, played a key role in Venezuela’s presidential election in July. Although the authorities proclaimed Mr. Maduro the winner, the opposition believes its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won.

Ms. Machado is currently in hiding in Venezuela, amid a wave of arrests of members of her inner circle. Gonzalez Urrutia went into exile in Spain on September 8.

Previous winners include the 2023 laureate, the Turkish philanthropist and civil society activist Osman Kavala, who remains in prison after his arrest in November 2017, and 2022 winner the Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Kara-Murza was present for the ceremony in Strasbourg following his release earlier this year after over two years behind bars in Russia.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado displays vote tally sheets during a protest against the reelection of President Nicolás Maduro one month after the disputed presidential vote which she says the opposition won by a landslide, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday (Aug. 28, 2024).
| Photo Credit: AP

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado on Thursday vowed to keep the pressure on President Nicolás Maduro to leave office in January.

She also urged the international community to rise to the occasion by immediately recognizing her faction’s presidential candidate as the winner of the election in July, and implement measures to hold government officials accountable for abuses unleashed after the vote.

Ms. Machado, speaking to reporters online from an undisclosed location in Venezuela, reaffirmed her commitment to negotiate incentives and guarantees that could lead to a peaceful transition of power.

“We, the Venezuelan people, have done everything,” she said. “We competed with the rules of tyranny … and we won, and we proved it. So, if the world or some government is thinking of looking the other way, imagine where sovereign will and popular sovereignty end up in the Western world. It would mean that elections are worthless.”

Her comments came three days after the country’s justice system, which is loyal to the ruling party, issued an arrest warrant for former diplomat Edmundo González, who represented the main opposition coalition in the July 28 election.

While the National Electoral Council — stacked with ruling party supporters — declared Mr. Maduro the winner, it never released vote tallies backing their claim. However, the opposition coalition claimed that González defeated Mr. Maduro by a 2-to-1 margin and offered as proof vote tallies from more than 80% of the electronic voting machines used in the election.

Thousands of people, including minors, took to the streets across Venezuela hours after the electoral council’s announcement. The protests were largely peaceful, but demonstrators also toppled statues of Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, the late leader Hugo Chávez, threw rocks at law enforcement officers and buildings, and burned police motorcycles and government propaganda.

Mr. Maduro’s government responded to the demonstrations with full force. A Wednesday report from Human Rights Watch implicated state security forces and gangs aligned with the ruling party in some of the 24 deaths that occurred during the protests.

“They have no limits in their cruelty,” Ms. Machado told reporters Thursday.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday condemned the “unjustified arrest warrant” of González, characterizing it as “another example of Mr. Maduro’s efforts to maintain power by force.” Mr. Kirby said the U.S. is considering a range of options to show Mr. Maduro and his allies that “their actions in Venezuela will have consequences.”

Under the Biden administration, Venezuela’s government has been granted various forms of economic relief from economic sanctions the U.S. imposed over the years to try to topple Mr. Maduro. Earlier this year, it ended some of the relief when the government increased repression efforts against members of the opposition, civil society and others it considers as adversaries.

Attorney General Tarek William Saab, a staunch Maduro ally, on Thursday insisted his office had sought the warrant because González, 75, failed to appear three times to answer questions in a criminal investigation focused on the publication online of the tally sheets obtained by the opposition. Mr. Saab told reporters that the publication constitutes an usurpation of powers exclusive of the National Electoral Council and claimed that the opposition’s vote records are false.

“You shared the website on your (social media) networks,” Mr. Saab said, referring to González. “Explain why you shared it if it is false.”

Mr. Saab’s claim contradicts experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center, which at the invitation of Mr. Maduro’s government observed the election and then determined the results announced by electoral authorities lacked credibility. In a statement critical of the election, the U.N. experts stopped short of validating the opposition’s claim to victory, but they said the faction’s voting records published online appear to exhibit all of the original security features.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, who is seeking reelection for a third term, dances during the closing of his political campaign, in Caracas, Venezuela, on July 25, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Uncertainty hangs over presidential elections in Venezuela on July 28, with incumbent Nicolas Maduro vowing a “bloodbath” if he loses, which polls say is likely.

Seeking a third six-year term at the helm of the economically devastated country, Mr. Maduro lags behind challenger Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia in voter intention. However, the 61-year-old counts on loyal electoral machinery, military leadership and state institutions in a system of political patronage and, critics say, opposition repression.

Mr. Maduro said July 25 that he, and he alone, can “guarantee peace and stability” for Venezuela, having warned recently of a “bloodbath” if he loses to an opposition he has sought to paint as “fascists.”

Analysts have told AFP that violence is likely if the state apparatus intervenes in an election that the opposition is all but certain of winning. Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia, for his part, urged Venezuelans not let “the message of hate… intimidate you.”

Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia, a 74-year-old former diplomat, is running in the place of wildly popular opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from the presidential race by institutions loyal to Mr. Maduro on what she and others say are trumped-up corruption charges.

Last week, the Venezuelan rights group Foro Penal reported 102 arrests this year of people linked to the opposition campaign, adding to more than 270 “political prisoners” in the country. U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said July 25 that Washington hoped for “peaceful elections” and stressed that “any political repression and violence is unacceptable.”

The United States, which has sanctions in place against the Maduro government, is keen for a return to stability in oil-rich Venezuela, whose economic collapse has prompted many migrants to head to the southern U.S. border.

Rights watchdog Human Rights Watch said the U.S., European Union, and influential neighbours Brazil and Colombia should use every diplomatic tool to protect the integrity of the vote.

“While the election in Venezuela will hardly be free or fair, Venezuelans have their best chance in over a decade to elect their government, and the international community should have their back as they do,” said HRW Americas director Juanita Goebertus.

Venezuela’s failed economy

The government in Caracas accuses the opposition of conspiring against Mr. Maduro, whose 2018 re-election was rejected as illegitimate by most Western and Latin American countries.

Years of tough sanctions and other pressure have failed to dislodge the president, who enjoys support from a political patronage system and the nation’s military leaders, as well as from Cuba, Russia and China.

Mr. Maduro has repeatedly vowed that he won’t cede power now even as Venezuelans clamour for change.

The formerly rich petro-state has seen GDP fall by 80% in less than a decade, driving some seven million of its citizens to flee. Most Venezuelans live on just a few dollars a month, with the health care and education systems in total disrepair and biting shortages of electricity and fuel.

The government blames U.S. sanctions for the state of affairs, however, observers say the collapse of the country’s all-important oil industry was mainly the result of deep-rooted corruption and mismanagement.

U.S. oil sanctions were briefly eased after Mr. Maduro agreed in negotiations with the opposition to hold free and fair elections this year. They were tightened after he reneged on the conditions, though Washington is allowing companies to apply for individual licenses to keep operating in Venezuela.

‘If you lose, you go’

The election poses the biggest threat yet to 25 years of “Chavismo,” the populist movement founded by Mr. Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chavez.

Voter Mercedes Henriques, 68, told AFP at an opposition rally she was excited for change “because we cannot anymore with this dictatorship we have.” But her optimism was tainted by worry. “We are praying that they don’t steal the election,” she said.

Analysts told AFP the Mr. Maduro is unlikely to concede defeat, especially in the absence of any immunity guarantees. The Venezuelan government is under investigation for human rights abuses by the International Criminal Court.

Some 21 million Venezuelans are eligible to cast a vote on Sunday.

Caracas has withdrawn an invitation to European Union experts to observe the vote, while allowing monitors from the U.N. and the U.S.-based Carter Center.

Argentina’s former president Alberto Fernandez on July 24 said that Caracas had also withdrawn an invitation for him to observe the polling. This came after he echoed a statement by Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who had said: “Maduro has to learn: if you win, you stay. If you lose, you go.”

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado attends a press conference, in Caracas, Venezuela, March 20, 2024.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Venezuela’s opposition leader Maria Corina Machado condemned on Wednesday the arrest of two of her staffers and accused the government of attacking her party for fear of losing July’s presidential election.

Her comments came after the country’s top prosecutor earlier in the day announced the arrest of two senior officials from Ms. Machado’s Vente Venezuela party over an alleged anti-government conspiracy.

Attorney General Tarek William Saab said Henry Alviarez and Dignora Hernandez were plotting to “rally the masses using labor and student unions to incentivize a military wing” to lead an uprising and “generate destabilization in the country.”

Seven other Ms. Machado aides have been arrested in recent days, and warrants have been issued for several more.

The attorney general did not mention any measures against Ms. Machado herself.

“Today, as you all know, arrest warrants were issued for nine Venezuelans, most of them members of our campaign team,” Ms. Machado said at a press conference in Caracas. “Two of the members of these teams were kidnapped and forcibly detained.”

“Everything, absolutely everything, said by the prosecutor” was false, she added.

“This is a shameful attempt to shut down the electoral process.”

Though she was disqualified from the July 28 election and banned from holding public office for 15 years, Ms. Machado has continued to try to challenge President Nicolas Maduro’s attempt to secure a third term.

Mr. Maduro’s regime knows “there is no way they can win an election,” she told reporters in the capital.

Attorney general Saab said the arrest warrants for Ms. Machado’s staffers stemmed from a confession by another of her aides, Emil Brandt Ulloa, who was arrested on March 9.

In a video, Mr. Bradnt allegedly admits to the conspiracy, and claims it was financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“We have revealed a series of conspiracies, threats and actions that have as a common denominator the intention of sowing violence and chaos in the country and threatening the life of the president” as well as “high civil and military authorities,” said Mr. Saab.

Vente Venezuela condemned what it described as the “kidnapping” of Alviarez and Hernandez, and said the “repression of the regime” was intensifying.

The party’s headquarters were shuttered Wednesday.

In a video circulating on social media, police officers were seen forcing a woman, widely identified as Hernandez, into a van as she shouted: “Help, please!”

“Vente Venezuela is not a terrorist organization … Our route is electoral, we want a peaceful transition,” Orlando Moreno, coordinator of the party’s human rights committee, told AFP.

‘Power at any cost’

Venezuela goes to the polls on July 28 with Mr. Maduro seeking re-election after 11 years in office marked by sanctions, economic collapse and accusations of widespread repression.

In October, Ms. Machado overwhelmingly won an opposition primary, capturing 92% of the votes.

But the Supreme Court in January upheld the administrative order barring her and her potential stand-in, Henrique Capriles, from holding public office.

Ms. Machado, 56, has accused Mr. Maduro of violating an agreement signed in Barbados last year, in which his administration promised to hold a free and fair vote in 2024 with international observers present.

The deal led the United States to ease sanctions, allowing Chevron to resume limited crude extraction — a decision it is now reconsidering given Ms. Machado’s continued exclusion from the ballot.

On Thursday, Brian Nichols, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, called for “the immediate release” of Ms. Machado’s staff.

“Maduro’s escalating attacks on civil society and political actors are totally inconsistent with Barbados Accord commitments but will not stifle the democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people,” he wrote in a statement on social media platform X.

Argentina and Uruguay also demanded the release of the opposition aides, while Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil accused the United States and Argentina of being “accomplices” to “fascists”.

Ms. Machado has so far refused to bow out of the presidential race, though it is unclear how she will overcome the state’s hurdles to her participation.

Official nominations for presidential candidates open on Thursday.

“Once again, those who seek to stay in power at any cost lash out against those who oppose them,” Capriles wrote on X.