‘Let’s go to an electoral process’
Speaking to AFP later on Sunday, he had called on the government to respect the 2024 presidential election, which opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia was widely considered to have won. Maduro claimed victory and remained in power till January.
“Let’s respect it. That’s the basic thing, that’s the logical thing. Oh, you don’t want to respect it? Then let’s go to an electoral process,” Guanipa said.
The opposition ally of Machado was arrested in May 2025, in connection with an alleged conspiracy to undermine legislative and regional elections that were boycotted by the opposition.
He was charged with terrorism, money laundering and incitement to violence and hatred.
Guanipa had been in hiding prior to his arrest. He was last seen in public in January 2025, when he accompanied Machado to an anti-Maduro rally.
Following Maduro’s capture by US special forces on January 3, authorities have started to slowly release political prisoners. Rights groups estimate that around 700 people are still waiting to be freed.
A former Machado legal advisor, Perkins Rocha, was also freed on Sunday. So was Freddy Superlano, who once won a gubernatorial election in Barinas, a city that is the home turf of the iconic late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.
“We hugged at home,” Rocha’s wife Maria Constanza Cipriani wrote on X, with a photo of them.
Machado, who was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to advance democracy in Venezuela, had initially celebrated Guanipa’s release.
“My dear Juan Pablo, counting down the minutes until I can hug you! You are a hero, and history will ALWAYS recognize it. Freedom for ALL political prisoners!!” she wrote on X on Sunday.