Venezuelan opposition candidate Gonzalez leaves for Spain as tensions rise

Venezuela’s former opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez has left for Spain following the South American country’s disputed election, Venezuelan and Spanish officials said late Saturday after a day of heightened diplomatic tensions.

Gonzalez, 75, who ran against President Nicolas Maduro in July, left after “voluntarily seeking refuge at the Spanish embassy in Caracas a few days ago,” Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez posted on Instagram.

“Edmundo Gonzalez took off from Caracas to Spain on a Spanish Air Force plane,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares posted on X, saying Madrid was responding to a request from Gonzalez.

Gonzalez’s departure from Venezuela is the latest political development since the country’s July 28 election. Democracies around the world have criticized the Venezuelan government’s handling of the vote, which election officials and the Supreme Court said Maduro won.

Venezuela’s opposition said the election had given Gonzalez a landslide victory and released online vote counts showing he had won.

This week, prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Gonzalez in connection with the online publication of the statistics, charging him with usurpation of office, falsification of public documents and conspiracy, among other charges.

Earlier on Saturday, the Venezuelan government revoked Brazil’s authority to represent Argentine interests in the country, including the management of the embassy where six opposition figures are taking refuge.

Venezuela cut ties with Argentina after the presidential election. Brazil, like Colombia and Mexico, has demanded that the Venezuelan government release the full results of the vote.

The government failed to do so, and the country’s electoral body said Maduro had been re-elected for a third term.

In a statement, Venezuela said the decision, which took immediate effect, was due to evidence that the embassy was being used to plot the assassination of Maduro and Rodriguez.

Brazil said it had been notified that its authorization had been revoked “unexpectedly”. Argentina said it rejected the “unilateral” decision. Both countries called on Maduro to respect the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

“Any attempt to violate or kidnap asylum seekers who remain in our official residences will be strongly condemned by the international community,” Argentina said in a statement. “Actions like this reinforce the belief that in Maduro’s Venezuela, basic human rights are not respected.”

A Brazilian diplomatic source said Saturday afternoon that Venezuela had assured Brazil that it would not invade the embassy.

In its statement, Brazil affirmed that it will continue to detain and protect Argentina’s interests until Argentina designates another country acceptable to Venezuela to do so.

“In this context, the Brazilian government stresses, in accordance with the provisions of the Vienna Convention, the inviolability of the premises of the Argentine diplomatic mission,” the statement said, adding that the agency was holding six Venezuelan asylum seekers, property and archives.

Reuters was first to report the escalation in tensions between the South American countries.

In March, six people sought asylum at the Argentine embassy in Caracas after a prosecutor ordered their arrest on charges including conspiracy. Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has denied the charges against her collaborators.

On Friday night, several opposition members at the Argentinian residence reported on their X accounts that the building was under surveillance and had no power. They posted videos showing men dressed in black and patrolling from the government intelligence agency, SEBIN.

Argentina’s Foreign Ministry has asked the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Maduro and other senior government officials over events that occurred after the election.