File photo of Venezuela opposition leader, Manuel Rosales. (AFP)
Manuel Rosales, an opposition leader who fled Venezuela after authorities charged him with corruption in 2009, was arrested Thursday as he returned ahead of key legislative elections.
A former state governor who lost the 2006 presidential election to late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, Rosales flew in from Aruba just as Venezuela gears up for the December 6 vote.
Prosecutors said the 62-year-old founder of center-right A New Era (UNT) party was arrested soon after arriving at the international airport in Maracaibo, capital of the western state of Zulia, his home region.
A heavy contingent of troops from Venezuela's Bolivarian National Guard and intelligence service officers had been awaiting him.
Journalists were blocked from filming the area as he was arrested.
"This deployment for my arrival ought to be made to fight crime and insecurity. We will do this peacefully. We are going to claim our due on December 6," Rosales said in a video posted on streaming service Periscope shortly after his arrival.
At the airport was his wife Eveling Trejo, the current mayor of Maracaibo, as well as members of his extended family and party sympathizers. Supporters waved flags at a downtown Maracaibo gathering as they awaited his arrival.
Rosales announced plans last Friday to return home, leading the attorney general's office to warn he would be detained on charges of stealing public money as Zulia governor between 2000 and 2008.
For years Rosales was considered Chavez's top opponent. He denies the corruption charges, insisting that they are politically motivated.
Rosales led the movement opposing Chavez-supported constitutional reforms in 2007. The "No" vote won the referendum, angering the president.
Chavez even accused Rosales of trying to assassinate him and vowed to put him behind bars.
Rosales went into hiding in March 2009, ahead of a court hearing to decide whether he should be jailed pending trial. He was mayor of Maracaibo at the time.
He had been in Peru, which granted him asylum on humanitarian grounds, though some reports indicated he later moved to Panama.
Earlier this year Rosales was officially barred from running in the upcoming legislative election, but he vowed to return to "help build our victory on December 6."
Why return now?Chavez's movement risks losing control of the National Assembly for the first time since the late leftist leader came to power in 1999.
His successor, President Nicolas Maduro, has struggled to rein in violent crime, end crippling shortages and right the ailing oil giant's recession-racked economy.
Opposition to the government is broad, and Maduro himself has acknowledged that this will be the most difficult election in 16 years of socialist governance.
The opposition however is split between a radical wing led by figures like jailed ex-mayor Leopoldo Lopez, and a more moderate faction led by 2013 presidential candidate Henrique Capriles.
Lopez, 44, was sentenced to nearly 14 years in prison in early September on charges of inciting violence during deadly protests between February and May 2014.
Other opposition leaders have been banned from office, are under arrest, or face legal charges.
Rosales's return offers leadership for the opposition, said Carlos Romero, a political scientist with the Universidad Central de Venezuela.
"He knows that this gesture will put him again on the political scene," he said.
However, Nicmer Evans, a Chavez supporter but Maduro critic, disagreed and derided Rosales as a politician "in decline" and "disconnected" from life in Venezuela.
His return merely reflects "a terrible crisis of leadership within the Venezuelan opposition," he said.
For Romero, there is "no opposition leader above another one so I don't think that Rosales is going to overshadow anyone."