Source of the image, REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria
- Author, Editorial Team
- Author’s Title, BBC News Mundo
Edmundo González, the opposition candidate in the elections on July 28 in Venezuela, left his country on Saturday night and arrived in Spain on Sunday, where he was granted political asylum.
“My departure from Caracas was surrounded by episodes of pressure, coercion, and threats,” González said in an audio message disseminated to the media by the Democratic Unitary Platform, the Venezuelan opposition coalition.
“I trust that we will soon continue the fight for freedom and the recovery of democracy in Venezuela,” the opposition leader added in the recording this Sunday, after his arrival in Spain.
On Saturday, through her Instagram account, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez informed that the opposition leader had left the South American nation.
Her statement explained that González had taken refuge in the Spanish embassy in Caracas for several days and had requested political asylum.
“Venezuela has granted the necessary safe conducts for the tranquility and political peace of the country,” the statement published by Rodríguez indicated.
“This conduct reaffirms respect for the law that has prevailed in the actions of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the international community.”
Earlier, the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, had confirmed the news through his X account.
“Edmundo González, at his request, is flying to Spain on a flight from the Spanish Air Force,” he wrote.
He added that the Spanish government “is committed to the political rights and physical integrity of all Venezuelans.”
Source of the image, Reuters
This Sunday, Venezuela’s Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, reported the “absolute respect” of the Public Ministry for Nicolás Maduro’s decision to grant a safe conduct and emphasized that Spain and Venezuela “agreed” on this measure.
“This Public Ministry expresses its absolute respect for the decisions of the Venezuelan Executive so that, in compliance with the right to asylum, guaranteed by the Constitution,” said the Attorney General.
González’s lawyer, José Vicente Haro, said in an interview with CNN that the presidential candidate had been “subjected to constant harassment, threats against his life, his physical integrity, his freedom, and his personal security” in the last three weeks in Venezuela.
Additionally, he refuted Saab, who claimed that the opposition candidate was “a victim of pressures from his party that forced him to make decisions”.
“A sad day”
The U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who described González as “an undisputed voice in favor of peace,” called the opposition leader’s departure from Venezuela “the direct result of the anti-democratic measures Nicolás Maduro has unleashed against the Venezuelan people.”
“Electoral results and the will of the people cannot simply be swept aside by Maduro and the Venezuelan electoral authorities,” he added.
For his part, the representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, stated in a statement that “today is a sad day for democracy in Venezuela.”
“In a democracy, no political leader should be forced to seek asylum in another country.
“Faced with repression, political persecution, and direct threats against his security and freedom, after having received hospitality at the residence of the Netherlands in Caracas until September 5, the political leader and presidential candidate Edmundo González has had to request political asylum and seek the protection offered by Spain.”
The official also called on the Venezuelan authorities to “release all political prisoners.”
Source of the image, REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria
María Corina Machado, leader of the Venezuelan opposition, confirmed in a message on X that González was in Spain.
She denounced that after the August 28 elections, “the regime unleashed a brutal wave of repression” and that González’s life, whom she calls “elected president,” “was at risk, and the growing threats, summons, arrest orders, and even attempts at blackmail and coercion he has faced show that the regime has no scruples or limits in its obsession to silence and attempt to subdue him.”
She assured that González “will fight from abroad”.
Juan Pablo Guanipa, a leader of Primero Justicia, an opposition party in Venezuela, stated on his X account that “it doesn’t matter where González is,” “we have to keep fighting for the respect of the victory” that the candidate claims to have obtained.
“What matters is that he was elected, that his election was demonstrated, and that popular sovereignty must be respected.”
Arrest warrant
González represented the Venezuelan opposition in the presidential elections after Machado was disqualified from being a candidate.
According to the minutes published by the opposition after the elections, González was the overwhelming winner.
However, the National Electoral Council declared Nicolás Maduro the winner, a result that has been questioned internationally as the minutes confirming it have not been published.
Source of the image, REUTERS/Maxwell Briceño
The Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela validated the results that gave Maduro victory on August 22.
And on Monday, September 2, a judge in Venezuela ordered the arrest of Edmundo González for alleged “usurpation of functions, forgery of public documents, incitement to disobedience of laws, conspiracy, system sabotage and association crimes.”
The former candidate did not appear before the courts, despite successive summons, and had remained in hiding since July 30.
The violence following the elections in Venezuela has claimed the lives of at least 27 people and left 192 injured.
Nicolás Maduro’s government has detained more than 2,400 people since the elections, which according to the UN has created “a climate of fear.”
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has appeared at public events after the elections and has expressed that she has no intentions of leaving the country.
From diplomacy to politics
After the disqualification of Machado, as well as Corina Yoris, whom he had appointed as a substitute, González was chosen to face Maduro at the polls.
When formalizing his candidacy in April, he said it was a responsibility he accepted “with humility.”
“It is an unexpected situation. I never thought I would be in this position. However, when it was presented to me, I took it as a personal commitment to Venezuela, to the system of government, and democracy,” he told BBC Mundo in an interview published on June 13.
“We have to seek national reconciliation and if that includes sectors that are currently aligned with the officialdom, then we will include them,” he added.
Born in 1949, Edmundo González studied International Relations at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and later earned a master’s degree on the subject at American University.
His first diplomatic post was as secretary of the Venezuelan embassy in the United States in 1978, at the age of 29. He then served in El Salvador during the civil war that plagued that Central American country over four decades ago.
At the end of 1999, he received his credentials as ambassador for the government of Rafael Caldera and, later, was ratified by Hugo Chávez, under whose government he served as ambassador to Argentina until 2002.
He served as a diplomat in various Venezuelan delegations in Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Algeria.
Between 2013 and 2015, he was the international representative of the Democratic Unity Table (MUD), the opposition coalition that transformed into what is now known as the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD).
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