Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González waves to supporters during a political event at a square in Hatillo, Caracas, Venezuela, June 19, 2024.
Ariana Cubillos/AP
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Ariana Cubillos/AP
CARACAS, Venezuela — Former Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González has fled into exile after being granted asylum in Spain, dealing a blow to millions who pinned their hopes on his upstart campaign to end two decades of single-party rule.
The sudden departure of the man whom the Venezuelan opposition and some foreign governments considered the legitimate winner of July’s presidential race was announced late Saturday night by Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez.
She said the government had decided to grant González safe passage out of the country, just days after ordering his arrest, to help restore “peace and political tranquility to the country”.
Neither González nor opposition leader Maria Corina Machado have commented.
Meanwhile, Spain’s center-left government said the decision to abandon Venezuela was González’s alone and that he left on a plane sent by the country’s air force.
“Spain is committed to protecting the political rights and physical integrity of all Venezuelans,” Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said on the social media platform X.
González, a 75-year-old former diplomat, was a last-minute replacement when Machado was barred from running. He was previously unknown to most Venezuelans, but his campaign quickly sparked hope among millions of Venezuelans desperate for change after a decade of economic collapse.
While President Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of the July vote, most Western governments have yet to recognize his victory and have instead asked the government to release a breakdown of the votes. Meanwhile, tallies compiled by opposition volunteers from more than two-thirds of the electronic voting machines showed González winning by a margin of more than 2-1.
The vote tallies have long been considered the final proof of election results in Venezuela. In previous presidential elections, the National Electoral Council published results online from each of the more than 30,000 voting machines, but this time the Maduro-controlled council did not release any data, blaming an alleged cyberattack by protesters from North Macedonia.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab, a staunch Maduro ally, sought González’s arrest after he failed to appear in court three times in connection with a criminal investigation into alleged election sabotage.
Saab told reporters that the voting records shared online by the opposition were fake and an attempt to undermine the National Election Council.
Experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center, who observed the election at the invitation of the Maduro government, determined that the results announced by electoral authorities lacked credibility. In a statement criticizing the election, the U.N. experts did not endorse the opposition’s claim of victory, but they said the voting records they published online appeared to demonstrate all of the original security features.
