Venezuelan opposition leaders are arrested after election

Venezuelan opposition leaders are arrested after election

Dramatic footage has emerged showing two Venezuelan opposition leaders being dragged away from their homes after controversial elections marred by bloodshed.

Antonio Ledezma and Leopoldo Lopez, high profile critics of President Nicolas Maduro, were hauled out of their houses by intelligence services, relatives say.

The arrests came a day after a vote to choose a much-condemned assembly that supersedes parliament. 

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the 'illegitimate elections confirm that Maduro is a dictator who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people.'

In one arrest video, Ledezma can be seen being forcibly removed from a building as women scream in the back ground. Another purportedly shows Lopez b eing bundled into a vehicle. 

Dramatic footage has emerged showing two Venezuelan opposition leaders being dragged away from their homes after controversial elections marred by bloodshed. One clip (above) shows Antonio Ledezma being forcibly removed from his house as women scream in the background

Another purportedly shows Leopoldo Lopez, another high profile critics of President Nicolas Maduro, being bundled into a vehicle

Arrest: The footage shows him Lopez being marched to a vehicle by intelligence services

Antonio Ledezma, a high profile critic of President Nicolas Maduro (pictured), was hauled out of his house by intelligence services, his children say

Lopez and Ledezma were both already under house arrest when they were picked up by the intelligence service.

The two men are Venezuela's most high profile opposition leaders. Both had called for a boycott of Sunday's vote for a so-called and all-powerful constituent assembly tasked with rewriting the constitution.

Both of their families said they held President Nicolas Maduro, the driving force behind the vote, responsible for the leaders' lives.

'They just took Leopoldo away. We do not know where he is or where they are taking him,' Lopez's wife Lilian Tintori said on Twitter.

The children of Ledezma - named Victor, Vanessa and Antoni etta - also said on Twitter that the Sebin had taken away their father.

Opposition leaders and local media posted cell phone footage of Ledezma being taken away from his home forcibly.

Opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara said the arrests were aimed at 'frightening us and demoralising us.' 

Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez (pictured) was arrested at his home, his wife has claimed

The children of Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma (pictured) - named Victor, Vanessa and Antonietta - also said on Twitter that the intelligence services had taken away their father

Last night,Maduro brushed off new U.S. sanctions on him and condemnation at home and abroad of the newly chosen constitutional assembly, saying the vote has given him a popular mandate to radically overhaul Venezuela's political system.

Maduro said Monday evening he had no intention of deviating from his plans to rewrite the constitution and go after a string of enemies, from independent Venezuelan news channels to gunmen he claimed were sent by neighbouring Colombia to disrupt the vote as part of an international conspiracy led by the man he calls 'Emperor Donald Trump.'

'They don't intimidate me. The threats and sanctions of the empire don't intimidate me for a moment,' Maduro said on national television. 'I don't listen to orders from the empire, not now or ever ... Bring on more sanctions, Donald Trump.'

A few hours earlier, Washington added Maduro to a steadily growing list of high-ranking Venezuelan officials targeted by financial sanctions, escalating a tactic that has so far failed to alter his socialist government's behavior. 

A member of the national guard fires his shotgun at opposition demonstrators during clashes in Caracas over the weekend

For now, the Trump administration did not deliver on threats to sanction Venezuela's oil industry, which could undermine Maduro's government but raise U.S. gas prices and deepen the humanitarian crisis here.

The sanctions came after electoral authorities said more than 8 million people voted Sunday to create a constitutional assembly endowing Maduro's ruling party with virtually unlimited powers - a turnout doubted by independent analysts while the election was labeled illegitimate by leaders across the Americans and Europe.

Venezuela's National Electoral Council said turnout in Sunday's vote was 41.53 percent, or 8,089,320 people. The result would mean the ruling party won more support than it had in any national election since 2013, despite a cratering economy, spiraling inflation, shortages of medicine and malnutrition. 

Opinion polls had said some 85 per cent of Venezuelans disapproved of the constitutional assembly and similar numbers disapproved of Maduro's overall performance.

Opposition leaders estimated the real turnout at less than half the government's claim in a vote watched by government-allied observers but no internationally recognised poll monitors.

Violence swept the country on Sunday as Maduro, 54, defied international condemnation to hold elections for a powerful new 'Constituent Assembly'. This was the scene as police clashed with protesters in Caracas yesterday

A policeman receives aid from his colleagues after an explosion at the Altamira Square surroundings in Caracas, Venezuela,

An exit poll based on surveys from 110 voting centers by New York investment bank Torino Capital and a Venezuela public opinion company estimated 3.6 million people voted, or about 18.5 per cent of registered voters.

The electoral council's vote counts in the past had been seen as reliable and generally accurate, but the widely mocked announcement appeared certain to escalate the polarization and political conflict paralyzing the country.

'If it wasn't a tragedy ... if it didn't mean more crisis, the electoral council's number would almost make you laugh,' opposition leader Freddy Guevara said on Twitter. Maduro has threatened that one of the constitutional assembly's first acts would be jailing Guevara for inciting violence.< /p>

The constituent assembly will have the task of rewriting the country's constitution and will have powers above and beyond other state institutions, including the opposition-controlled congress.

Maduro has said the new assembly will begin to govern within a week. Among other measures, he said he would use the assembly's powers to bar opposition candidates from running in gubernatorial elections in December unless they sit with his party to negotiate an end to hostilities that have generated four months of protests that have killed at least 120 and wounded nearly 2,000.

Opposition supporters stand behind a barricade as the Constituent Assembly election was being carried out in Caracas, Venezuela yesterday

Protesters attacked polling stations and barricaded streets around the country, drawing a bloody response from security forces, who opened fire with live ammunition in some cases

Opponents have vowed to keep protesting after the election, which was called in a bid to pick a new assembly to rewrite the constitution

Colombia, Mexico, Peru and other nations joined the US in saying they did not recognize the results of Sunday's election, which appointed a new 'Constituent Assembly' superseding Venezuela's legislative body, the opposition-controlled National Assembly.

Maduro's own attorney general, Luisa Ortega - who broke with him months ago over his policies - also said she would not acknowledge the body, calling it part of the president's 'dictatorial ambition.'

The European Union expressed 'preoccupation for the fate of democracy in Venezuela' and said it, too, doubted it could accept the results.

And Britain's Foreign Minister Boris Johnson warned that Venezuela 'stands on the brink of disa ster.'

'Nicolas Maduro's government must stop before it is too late,' he said. 

Maduro said he had received congratulations from the governments of Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua, among others.

The monetary impact of the new U.S. sanctions wasn't immediately clear as Maduro's holdings in U.S. jurisdictions, if he has any, weren't publicized.

However, imposing sanctions on a head of state is rare and can be symbolically powerful, leading other countries to similarly shun such a leader. 

For example, the U.S. has had sanctions against Syria's President Bashar Assad since 2011. Other heads of state currently subject to U.S. sanctions include Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and North Korea's Kim Jong Un.

Maduro called the constitutional assembly in May after a month of protests against his government , which has overseen Venezuela's descent into a devastating crisis during its four years in power. 

Due to plunging oil prices and widespread corruption and mismanagement, Venezuela's inflation and homicide rates are among the world's highest, and widespread shortages of food and medicine have citizens dying of preventable illnesses and rooting through trash to feed themselves.

The president of the opposition-led National Assembly, Julio Borges, told Venezuelan news channel Globovision on Monday that Maduro's foes would continue protesting until they won free elections and a change of government.

He said Sunday's vote gave Maduro 'less legitimacy, less credibility, less popular support and less ability to govern.'

 

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