A car recently pulled up outside a modest restaurant in the state of Guárico, in Venezuela’s vast savannah. The driver shouted from the driver’s seat: “Are you the one whose business was shut down by the government? “I want to take a picture with you!”
The man got out of the car and approached Corina Hernández, 44, one of the restaurant owners. He took a selfie. “We are all angry.” he said to her.
As Venezuela heads into its most contested election in years, Corina and her sister Elise Hernández have emerged as unexpected political folk heroes.
Their transgressions? It sells 14 breakfasts and a handful of empanadas to members of the country’s main opposition party. The government’s response came just hours later. That means the sisters were ordered to temporarily close their businesses.
Their case was shared widely on the Internet, turning it into a symbol of resistance for Venezuelans tired of the country’s authoritarian leaders. (The sisters have since gained so much popularity online beyond Venezuela that they rebranded their product as ‘Freedom Empanadas.’)
But their business is just one of several that has received strong government support after providing routine services to President Nicolas Maduro’s main political opponent, Maria Corina Machado.
Mr. Machado, a former congressman and long-time critic of Mr. Maduro, is not even running, but is using his popularity to campaign on Mr. Maduro’s behalf alongside the main opposition presidential candidate.
And wherever she campaigns, those who help her face harassment from the authorities. Targets in recent weeks have included six sound equipment operators at rallies, a truck driver retrieving supplies from a campaign event in Caracas and four men in a canoe who provided transportation from a poor Venezuelan outpost.
Some people said in interviews they were detained for hours and taken to a notorious detention center known as Helicoide. Others have had their equipment confiscated and businesses closed, depriving them of their livelihoods.
“We had nothing to eat in those days,” said truck driver Francisco Ecceso during the 47 days his vehicle was impounded by police.
For opposition figures and analysts after the country’s democracy has declined in recent years, these minor persecutions are a clear sign that the government is seeking new ways to suppress the opposition and demonstrate its power.
Whatever the motivation, it is widely agreed that the vote, scheduled for July 28, will be the biggest electoral challenge to President Maduro’s 11 years in power.
For the first time in years, the opposition is united around one man, Mr. Machado, who enjoys broad voter support. When Maduro’s government banned her from running, her coalition succeeded in getting a soft-spoken former diplomat named Edmundo González to vote by proxy.
Opinion polls show that a majority of Venezuelans plan to vote for Mr. González and are frustrated by widespread hunger, poverty and soaring levels of migration that are tearing families apart.
The Hernández sisters run Pancho Grill, a restaurant in Corozo Pando, a small town five hours’ drive south of Caracas. This is one of the poorest areas in the country. There are a total of five Hernández siblings (four sisters and one brother), two of whom, Corina and Elys, run the restaurant with their aunt Nazareth.
Here, following the economic crisis that began around 2015, people who once had decent jobs now make a living scavenging for scraps they can sell, while mothers hunt rodents and small pig-like vaquiros, known locally as picure, to feed their children. I rely on it.
The Hernández family has been running Pancho Grill for 20 years, selling a breakfast of beef, eggs, beans and corn cakes called arepas to those who can afford it.
Empanadas, a staple of the Venezuelan diet, are pan-fried to a crisp, filled with cheese, beef or chicken, and served with a generous dollop of ají dulce salsa, the country’s favorite pepper. Yes.
Their workplaces bear the scars of the economic downturn. Ceiling leaks leave kitchens rusting, refrigerators break down and power outages extend, leaving the Hernández women often working in the dark.
In late May, Machado stopped by Pancho Grill with his team between campaign events to buy breakfast and take a photo with the Hernández family.
But the opposition leader had barely left when the sisters welcomed a new visitor. Two tax regulators and one member of the National Guard said they were temporarily suspending business.
The sisters had problems including not keeping accounting books or reporting their income, officials said.
The sisters did not dispute these accusations. But in 20 years of operation, they have never had a visit from the Internal Revenue Service, they said. And in an area where such violations are common, no one in town was investigated that day.
The Hernández family was told the restaurant would be closed for 15 days.
Internal Revenue Service officials did not respond to an email requesting comment.
At first, the Hernández sisters were devastated. However, they filmed their interactions with regulators and sent it to one of their daughters. The young woman decided it would be a good idea to share her family’s experience with some of her friends.
The video quickly spread online, and soon angry supporters visited the restaurant as if making a pilgrimage. Donations showed up on the doorstep. It was a 33-pound bag of cornmeal, a spice for seasoning the filling of empanadas. Then money started flowing in from Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and even Germany.
Many people ordered empanadas and told us to distribute them to local residents whose families are in need.
At her restaurant recently, Corina Hernández wondered if Mr. Machado might have been sent to them by God. The government’s retaliation paradoxically turned out to be a blessing.
“Our lives changed when Maria Corina arrived to buy empanadas,” she said. “Everything has improved.”
After being closed for 15 days, the sisters said they reopened the restaurant and, with the help of new supporters, paid the $350 fine. Ms. Hernández said she had voted for Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, but had not voted since 2006. (Mr. Maduro was Mr. Chavez’s hand-picked choice to succeed him as president.)
But now she says the fines levied by tax authorities have convinced her she will have to turn up on July 28 to vote for the opposition this time.
Although the Hernández family is back in business, not everyone who clashed with the government was so lucky.
The six sound operators were detained for hours on end, fearing they would be locked up for years, one of them said in an interview. In the state of Zulia, on the country’s western edge, hotels that hosted Mr. Machado’s team now have ‘closed’ signs posted on their doors.
An employee said the restaurant lost a significant amount of money after two restaurants were forced to cancel planned First Communion celebrations.
A wooden boat confiscated by authorities a five-hour drive south of Pancho Grill, Apure state, sits upside down on the beach next to the National Guard headquarters.
A few days ago, Mr. Machado arrived in the village of Puerto Páez, Apure. Local organizers drove through the streets with megaphones to announce her presence, and townspeople attached yellow balloons to her truck, which she later used as a podium to address voters. The streets were overflowing with people.
The next day, four boatmen in motorized canoes agreed to take Ms. Machado and her team to their next campaign location. The boat was soon confiscated, and National Guard troops later visited their homes, according to interviews with three boatmen. There, two guards told a boatman’s wife that they had brought “orders from the superiors of Caracas” and intended to arrest her husband.
He wasn’t home because he was hiding. Boatmen now travel from house to house, sleeping in a different place each night.
National Guard representatives did not respond to emails requesting comment.
But the wife, who asked not to be named for fear of further reprisals, said her husband made the right decision to transport Mr. Machado. “I don’t regret it,” she said.
“I have faith in God that she will win,” she said of Ms. Machado, whom many voters recognize as the real political force behind Mr. González. And I believe everything will change.”
