Less than two weeks before Venezuela’s presidential election, the head of security for a key opposition figure has been arrested, further raising concerns that the country will not see a fair contest on 28 July, when Nicolás Maduro will seek a third term.
María Corina Machado, the opposition’s outspoken figurehead, wrote on X that her security chief, Milciades Ávila, had been detained early on Wednesday, the latest in string of arrests of opposition activists and staffers.
Machado herself was barred from running by a court decision over alleged fraud violations, which she denies. She tried to appoint a substitute, who was also blocked.
Since then, the opposition has rallied around the candidacy of the retired diplomat Edmundo González, who is leading the polls. He posted a video in which he “denounced the arbitrary detention” of Ávila.
Machado wrote on X: “Maduro has made violence and repression his campaign.”
She wrote that her head of security had been part of her team for the last 10 years, adding: “Ávila has accompanied me around the country and risked his life defending me.
“Early this morning, he was abducted by the regime, accused of gender violence against some women who last Saturday tried to attack Edmundo and me,” she wrote.
Last Saturday, her party, Vente Venezuela, published on social media that “unidentified men and women forcibly entered a restaurant in La Encrucijada where María Corina and Edmundo González and their teams were eating.”
A video posted on X shows two women confronting the politicians. A group of men stands in front of them, and one of the women shouts: “Don’t touch me.”
María Corina Machado wrote: “There are dozens of witnesses and videos proving that this act was a planned provocation to leave us without protection 11 days before 28 July.
The Venezuelan NGO Foro Penal reported that, this year alone, Venezuelan authorities had arrested 102 people linked to Edmundo González’s campaign.
The NGO’s vice-president, Gonzalo Himiob Santomé, said that the arrests reflected “a clear pattern of action against activists, militants, and even collaborators or individuals who provide their services” to the opposition leaders.
“This constitutes a serious and unambiguous indication that a systematic and widespread scheme of restriction is being executed from power against the citizenry due to the specific identity of a group of citizens who identify with the political option proposed by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González,” said Santomé.
