After receiving threats from everyone in the Venezuelan government, ranging from the Attorney General to senior officials from the National Assembly, opposition leader María Corina Machado has declared she has gone into hiding.
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled "I Can Prove Maduro Got Trounced", Machado starts off by revealing she is hiding. She then recounts Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia's campaign, the alleged electoral fraud on Sunday and the violent aftermath, which has included her persecution.
"I am writing this from hiding, fearing for my life, my freedom, and that of my fellow countrymen, from the dictatorship led by Nicolás Maduro," begins the article, followed by a powerful assertion of who really won the presidential election in Venezuela:
"Mr. Maduro didn't win the Venezuelan presidential election on Sunday. He lost in a landslide to Edmundo González, 67% to 30%. I know this to be true because I can prove it. I have receipts obtained directly from more than 80% of the nation's polling stations."
Machado goes on to detail everything the Maduro camp did to "sabotage and derail" the opposition campaign, including banning her from competing for the presidency, disqualifying her stand-in candidate Corina Yoris and imprisoning dozens of her closest allies.
"The regime could never have imagined that our movement would grow in numbers and slowly take over the entire voting base of chavismo," she explains at one point. "The poor and rural people who fueled Hugo Chávez's meteoric rise are now disillusioned and have taken control of their future."
Machado then describes the "the mathematical certainty" of the opposition's triumph, sharing a link to a website with the proof collected so far. "Proof of this brazen fraud was furnished to heads of state across the world," she explained.
The impassioned article concludes by saying that she "could be captured as I write these words", as well as a plea for the international community to step up:
"We Venezuelans have done our duty. We have voted out Mr. Maduro. Now it is up to the international community to decide whether to tolerate a demonstrably illegitimate government. The repression must stop immediately, so that an urgent agreement can take place to facilitate the transition to democracy. I call on those who reject authoritarianism and support democracy to join the Venezuelan people in our noble cause. We won't rest until we are free."
On Wednesday, during a press conference at the presidential palace, Nicolás Maduro suggested that his opposition rivals and their supporters who took to the street these past few days should be "jailed for at least 30 years" before going after both Machado and Edmundo González by name:
"Ms. Machado, where are you? Why don't you show your face, after so much outrage and violence? Mr. González, you are responsible for this and much more. There are dead members of the military. Take responsibility. Like I said yesterday, coward, the impunity ends here."
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