Turmoil in Venezuela

Opposition leader kidnapped after demonstration

Maria Corina Machado made her first public appearance again on Thursday - and has now disappeared.(Bild: AFP)

After her first public appearance in months, Venezuela's opposition leader María Corina Machado has been kidnapped following a protest rally, according to opposition candidate Edmundo González. 

"To the security forces who kidnapped her, I say: don't play with fire," González wrote on X and demanded her immediate release.

The opposition's campaign platform had previously announced that Machado had been forcibly intercepted. Government members had shot at the motorcycles on which she was being transported. The opposition leader had just left a rally.

Machado had left her safe house for the first time in months to join the protests she had called for by thousands of people against the planned swearing-in of authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro. "I am here, with you, and until the end," she wrote on X. The 57-year-old had not appeared in public after the election for security reasons.

People across the country took to the streets with slogans such as "Glory to the brave people", as can be seen in pictures on online networks.

Maduro is sworn in
After the presidential election in Venezuela in July, opposition candidate Edmundo González claimed victory. The USA and several Latin American countries recognize him as the winner of the election. However, the electoral authority, which is loyal to the opposition, declared President Maduro, who has been in power for almost twelve years, the winner. He is due to be sworn into office on Friday.

González left for Spain at the beginning of September and applied for political asylum there. He recently announced that he would return to his home country and also be sworn in as president of the South American country on Friday. However, an arrest warrant has been issued for him in Venezuela.