CARACAS, Oct 17, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on Wednesday denied claims that she has left the country, after President Nicolas Maduro implied that she had fled to Spain following elections she denounced as illegitimate.

Machado has been in hiding for more than two months after being threatened with arrest for her allegations of fraud in the July 28 presidential vote which saw Maduro reelected.

"Venezuelans know that I am here in Venezuela, the people know it and Nicolas Maduro also knows it, what happens is that they are desperate to know where I am and I'm not going to give them that pleasure," Machado told the EVTV television channel.

Maduro had hinted on Monday that his political rival had left Venezuela, later saying she had gone to Spain, where the opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is in exile after July's election.

The United States, Europe and most Latin American states have refused to recognize Maduro's reelection in the absence of a detailed vote breakdown, which has not been released.

The opposition published its own tally of polling station-level results, which it said showed Gonzalez Urrutia had won two-thirds of votes cast.

Machado was herself ruled ineligible to run in the election by institutions loyal to the Maduro regime.

Unrest following the presidential poll claimed 27 lives and saw more than 2,400 people arrested on charges of "terrorism" for taking part in protests.