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.

In this photo provided by Cambodia’s Prime Minister Telegram, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a welcome ceremony in Beijing on September 15, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

The leaders of China and Zambia announced an upgrading of their ties to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership on September 15, as the world’s second-largest economy forges deeper ties with the Global South.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also met new Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet earlier the same day, and with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro earlier this week.

The trio of leaders from Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America speak to China’s growing role in those parts of the world. Chinese state banks have financed roads and other infrastructure projects and Chinese companies have built factories, mines, hotels and casinos.

China has in turn won diplomatic support from many Global South countries on contentious debates and votes at the U.N. and from Cambodia in China’s territorial disputes with other Southeast Asian nations in the South China Sea.

Its outreach to the Global South has taken on greater geopolitical import as China seeks allies to push back against growing pressure from the United States and its partners on multiple fronts.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported online that Mr. Xi and Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema announced the upgraded partnership at a meeting at the Great Hall of the People, a monumental building on one side of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

That came two days after China announced it had upgraded diplomatic ties with Venezuela to an “all weather” partnership — a status China has granted to only a handful of countries — after the Xi-Maduro meeting.

Development loans from China and others have saddled some countries, including Zambia, with unsustainable debt levels, sparking debt crises that stymie economic development. More than 40% of Cambodia’s $10 billion in foreign debt is owed to Chinese institutions.

Hun Manet made China his first official foreign visit after succeeding his father, Hun Sen, who ruled Cambodia for 40 years.

The U.S. had shown disapproval of Hun Sen’s undemocratic moves and is uneasy over the expansion of a Cambodian naval facility with Chinese assistance. Hun Sen consistently denied that Cambodia had granted China the right to set up its own military base at Ream Naval Base.

After his meetings in Beijing, Mr. Hun Manet plans to join other Southeast Asian leaders this weekend in southern China at the 20th ASEAN-China Expo, which promotes cooperation in trade, investment and tourism.