CARACAS — Thousands of supporters of Venezuela's opposition gathered in Caracas and different places on Saturday, vowing to fight "to the end" to force Maduro to quit.
People rallied in several cities in Venezuela and as far as Spain, Belgium and Australia in response to a call by opposition leader Maria Corina Machado to join a "Protest for the Truth."
Machado herself came out of hiding to lead a rally in the capital, seeking to intensify pressure on Maduro to concede what she and others say was an overwhelming win for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia in the July 28 polls.
"We won't leave the streets," Machado told thousands of demonstrators, many of whom waved the national flag and copies of election records from their voting stations as proof of an opposition victory.
"Peaceful protest is our right," she said as demonstrators chanted "Liberty! Liberty!" and clamored to get as near as possible to the wildly popular politician.
Authorities later confiscated the open-top truck that Machado uses as a stage at rallies, including on Saturday, according to an X post from her Comando Con Venezuela alliance.
Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE) proclaimed Maduro the winner of a third six-year term until 2031, giving him 52 percent of votes cast but without providing a detailed breakdown of the results.
The opposition said polling station-level results showed Gonzalez Urrutia took more than two-thirds of the vote.
'Hiding in a cave'
Maduro on Saturday accused Gonzalez Urrutia, who last appeared in public at a protest on July 30, of trying to flee the country.
"He's hiding in a cave. And he's preparing his escape from Venezuela.
Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is taking the money and going to Miami," Maduro told supporters at a rally outside the Miraflores presidential palace.
He has called for Machado and Gonzalez Urrutia to be arrested, accusing them of seeking to foment a "coup d'etat."
Gonzalez Urrutia was defiant in a post on X earlier in the day: "We have the votes, the records, the support of the international community and Venezuelans determined to fight. It is time for an orderly transition."
At one of the first overseas demonstrations to get underway Saturday, more than 100 Venezuelans in Australia rallied in Sydney.
There were also rallies in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina, where 34-year-old Andreina Escalante told AFP "we have faith that we will get out of the dictatorship."
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