Edmundo González, likely winner of Venezuela election, flees to Spain

Edmundo González, the Venezuelan opposition candidate for president and likely winner of the July 28 election, fled the South American nation on Saturday and received asylum in Spain under threat of imminent arrest by his country’s authoritarian government.

González’s departure is a crushing setback for the U.S.-backed opposition movement, which had hoped his apparent landslide win would pressure Venezuelan strongman President Nicolás Maduro to negotiate a transition of power.

Instead, Maduro declared himself the winner of the election and unleashed a wave of violent repression that rights advocates say is the country’s worst since he rose to power more than a decade ago. A slew of opposition figures have been detained by Maduro’s security forces or forced into hiding.

González, a 75-year-old former diplomat, fled to exile five days after Venezuela’s attorney general filed a warrant for his arrest as part of what he said was an investigation into the opposition’s publication of voting machine receipts showing its candidate won more than twice as many votes as Maduro.

“My departure from Caracas was surrounded by episodes, pressures, coercion and threats,” González said in a recorded voice message after arriving in Madrid. “I trust that soon we will continue the fight to achieve freedom and recover democracy in Venezuela.”

González’s “life was in danger,” opposition leader María Corina Machado said in a statement Sunday morning.

“In the face of this brutal reality, it is necessary for our cause to preserve his freedom, his integrity and his life,” said Machado, the driving force behind González’s campaign. “Let this be very clear to everyone: Edmundo will fight from the outside with our diaspora and I will continue to do so here, with you.”

Machado, who swept the opposition primaries but was barred by a top court from running as a candidate, has been the movement’s most powerful figure and Maduro’s most potent political adversary. Many in the opposition had hoped that González – a soft-spoken leader with diplomatic experience – would be more likely to bring the autocrat to the negotiating table. But Maduro has shown no willingness to enter into talks or loosen his grip on power, and any remaining hopes may have been snuffed out by González’s departure.

“Today is a sad day for democracy in Venezuela,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement, adding that González appeared to have won the presidential elections. “In a democracy, no political leader should be forced to seek asylum in another country.”

According to Borrell and Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp, the Netherlands had granted González’s request for refuge in its diplomatic residence in Caracas after the elections, and he stayed there until Thursday.

“In early September, Edmundo González indicated his intention to leave the residence and the country,” Veldkamp said in a statement. “In response, I spoke to him about the situation in Venezuela, the importance of the opposition’s work and the transition to democracy, and emphasized our continued hospitality. He indicated that he nevertheless wanted to leave and continue his struggle from Spain.”

Late Saturday evening, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez announced via Instagram that González left after having been “granted the due safe passage for the sake of the tranquility and political peace of the country.”

“This conduct reaffirms the respect for the law that has prevailed in the actions of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the international community,” Rodríguez wrote.

González, she added, had been a “voluntary refugee” in the Spanish Embassy in Caracas for several days. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares wrote on X that González was heading to the European nation aboard a Spanish air force plane.

Juan Pablo Guanipa, another opposition leader, slammed Rodríguez’s statement about the country offering González “safe passage” to maintain peace.

“That is not the peace that we Venezuelans want. There was a [voting] result that was violated by Maduro and the [national electoral council] and we have to continue fighting so that the victory of [González] is respected, no matter where he is,” Guanipa wrote on X.

On Friday, the night before González’s departure, Maduro’s security forces began surrounding the Argentine Embassy in Caracas, where six of Machado’s top aides have taken refuge for months. After Argentina’s diplomatic staff was forced to leave the country, Brazil took custody of the embassy to protect the opposition members. But on Saturday, Venezuela’s government confirmed it had revoked Brazil’s authorization to administer the embassy, putting the safety of those inside at risk.

On Sunday, Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab, whose office filed the arrest warrant against González, described his departure from the country as “the final chapter of a mediocre play.”

González’s lawyer, José Vicente Haro, declined to delve into the arrangements that led to his exile but said “there were many details and aspects related to this complex negotiation, the guarantees agreed and the associated situations.”

Ultimately, he added, the decision weighed heavily on González – who opted to avoid the arrest that was most likely awaiting him after a prosecutor accused him of crimes including usurpation, forgery of a public document, instigation and sabotage. Maduro has also accused González of endorsing violence and connected him to a recent nationwide power outage.

“Unfortunately, the pressure against him was too strong,” Haro said.

Maduro, who has ruled the South American country since 2013, has repeatedly used the judiciary to affirm his authority. Last month, Venezuela’s high court ratified Maduro’s claimed election victory – a seal of institutional approval for another six-year term – after the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council anointed him the winner in July, with what it said was nearly 52 percent of the vote to González’s 43 percent. But the council has not released precinct-level results, and independent reviews of receipts from 23,000 voting machines indicate that González won the election by a wide margin.

He probably got more than twice as many votes as Maduro, according to a Washington Post review of precinct-level tally sheets collected by the opposition – a sample that represents nearly 80 percent of voting machines nationwide.

The United States, European Union and several Latin American countries have refused to accept Maduro’s claim of victory and instead demanded that the government release precinct-level voting results, as required by Venezuelan law.

On Tuesday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby decried the arrest warrant against González as “another example of Mr. Maduro’s efforts to maintain power by force and to refuse to recognize that Mr. González won the most votes on the 28th of July.” He added that the Biden administration is “considering a range of options to demonstrate to Mr. Maduro and his representatives that their actions in Venezuela will have consequences.”