CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — To millions of Venezuelans and dozens of foreign governments, Edmundo González was the indisputable winner of the country’s July 28 presidential election.
But on Sunday he joined the ranks of once-powerful government opponents in exile, leaving his political future uncertain and strengthening President Nicolas Maduro’s grip on power.
The former presidential candidate Safe passage allowed The Maduro regime allowed him to enter Spain to seek asylum there. His sudden departure was ordered his arrest.
Gonzalez, 75, burst onto Venezuela’s political scene less than five months ago, by sheer chance, after opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was barred from running and her handpicked replacement was also prevented from running.
In April, a coalition of more than a dozen parties settled on Mr. Gonzalez, who went from little-known retired diplomat and grandfather to an overnight celebrity with millions hoping to end more than two decades of one-party rule.
Accompanying Machado, He crisscrossed the country in the final weeks of the campaign, galvanizing large crowds of Venezuelans who blame Maduro for one of the worst economic collapses in history outside the battlefield.
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“Let’s just imagine for a moment the country that is coming,” he told cheering supporters at a rally in the once-thriving industrial city of La Victoria, “a country where the president does not insult or treat his enemies with hostility. A country where when you come home from work, your money has value, you flip the switch and you get electricity, you turn the tap and you get water.”
The yin-yang strategy has proven more popular than Maduro’s opponents had imagined.
The election was quickly contested
The National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner. The opposition’s superior ground game He allowed evidence to be collected that showed that Gonzalez had actually won by a margin of more than 2 to 1. Foreign governments denounced the official results. UnreliableSome of Maduro’s leftist allies have also withheld recognition, demanding as before that authorities release a breakdown of the results of the vote, which was counted by 30,000 voting machines across the country.
In the weeks since the contentious vote, both opposition figures went into hiding amid a brutal crackdown that has seen more than 2,000 arrests and at least 24 deaths at the hands of security forces. Gonzalez has not made any public appearances, while Machado has made sporadic appearances at rallies in an attempt to keep up the pressure on Maduro.
Machado sought to cast a positive light on Gonzalez’s departure Saturday night, assuring Venezuelans that he would return on Jan. 10 for the swearing-in ceremony that will mark the start of his next presidential term.
“His life was in danger. The intensification of threats, subpoenas, arrest warrants and even blackmail and extortion attempts speaks to the regime’s lack of conscience,” Machado said on X. “I want to make it clear to everyone: Edmundo will fight from the outside, together with our diaspora.”
Running for office after a career as a diplomat
Gonzalez began his career as an aide to the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States, and has served in Belgium and El Salvador, as well as serving as the Algerian ambassador in Caracas.
His last post was as ambassador to Argentina during the early years of the government of Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chavez. More recently, he has worked as an international relations consultant, writing about recent political developments in Argentina and a history book about Venezuela’s foreign minister during World War II.
His time living in El Salvador and Algeria overlapped with periods of armed conflict in those countries, and at one point local Salvadorans tracked his location and even made threatening phone calls to his home, saying they knew Gonzalez had just returned home.
During his election campaign, Maduro claimed without evidence that Gonzalez had been recruited as a CIA operative during the Cold War, a period that coincided with active U.S. military intervention in the Central American country.
Gonzalez had just returned to Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, from a trip to Spain to visit his daughter and grandchildren. Opposition leaders presented the idea to him. To be a candidate.
The soft-spoken tone and poker face he acquired as a diplomat stand in stark contrast to the loud, egotistical politicians Venezuelans have long grown accustomed to. Maduro and his allies see his conciliatory tone as a sign of weakness. But such language was one of his many selling points for Venezuelans tired of winner-take-all politics.
“Enough with the yelling, enough with the insults.” Gonzalez told supporters:“It’s time to reunite.”
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Goodman reported from Miami.