“Keep fighting,” says Venezuelan opposition leader on the eve of protests

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado called on her supporters on Friday to “continue the fight” on the eve of protests against the election victory claimed by dictator Nicolás Maduro but widely rejected at home and abroad.

Anti-Maduro protests have left 25 people dead, dozens injured and more than 2,400 arrested since the July 28 vote, which both the president and the opposition claimed to have won.

Machado had called for new demonstrations on Saturday in more than 300 cities in Venezuela and abroad, which she described as a “protest for the truth.”

She will take part in a march in the capital Caracas, where supporters of the regime also plan to gather.

The country's National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner of a third six-year term with 52 percent of the vote, but did not provide a detailed breakdown of the results.

The opposition says that polling station results showed their candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, received more than two-thirds of the vote.

Gonzales Urrutia replaced Machado in the election after her candidacy was blocked by institutions loyal to Maduro, who has been in office since 2013.

The duo have largely remained under the surface since the president accused them of plotting a coup after the election and called for their detention.

The United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries have rejected Maduro's claim of victory.

In a live broadcast on Instagram on Friday, Machado called on the population to “continue the fight” and to resolutely oppose Maduro's strategy of “demoralization” through “lies, repression and violence.”

Neighbouring countries Colombia and Brazil called for new elections in Venezuela on Thursday, but Machado said this would show a “lack of respect” for the will of the people, which had already been expressed on July 28.

On Friday, Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, traditionally a left-wing ally of Maduro, struck a harsh tone, calling the regime in Caracas “very unpleasant” while insisting that it publish a detailed breakdown of the election results.

In a radio interview, Lula refused to describe Maduro's government as a dictatorship, but said it had an “authoritarian tendency.”

“What I require in order to be able to recognize [the winner] is at least to know if the numbers are correct. … I can only recognise them if they were democratic, if they present the evidence,” he insisted.

The Organization of American States passed a resolution in Washington on Friday calling on Caracas to “expeditiously publish the records of the presidential election, including the voting results at the level of each polling station.”