Venezuela Opposition Leader Flees After Arrest Order

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(Bloomberg) -- The resistance against Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro was dealt a major blow on Saturday, when the president’s main opposition fled to Spain.

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Edmundo González’s departure comes one month after his party presented voting records to prove his win in the July 28 presidential election through an unprecedented, citizen-led oversight system. Venezuelan authorities, however, declared Maduro reelected to a third term and ordered González’s arrest.

The government’s repression has grown at a breakneck pace ever since, with the detention of 2,400 protesters and arrest of four prominent opposition politicians.

“The forced exile of the country’s president-elect is a sad day for the millions who voted for him,” said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It also places a political transition even further from reach.”

The nation quickly coalesced around González, a little-known former ambassador, after he was chosen to represent the opposition in April. González, 75, was a stand-in for María Corina Machado, the opposition’s most popular figure, who was barred from running.

While Venezuela’s electoral authority said Maduro won with 51.95% of the vote, the opposition published more than 80% of voting tabulations that show González received nearly 70%.

Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said González sought refuge at Spain’s embassy in Caracas several days ago and that the two nations arranged for his passage this weekend. Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares later confirmed González was on his way on a Spanish Air Force plane.

The move is likely to draw further outcry from the US and other countries that have concluded González was the winner of the presidential vote.

Venezuelan prosecutors accused González of breaking the law because the opposition uploaded voting records to show he won in a landslide. He is accused of crimes including forging a public document, incitement to disobedience of laws, conspiracy and sabotage.

His departure comes amid rising tensions in the capital, as dozens of Maduro’s agents stationed themselves outside Argentina’s embassy in Caracas on Friday, threatening to go after opposition campaign workers who have sheltered there for months.

The standoff is escalating tensions within Latin America’s left, where longtime allies of Maduro, including the presidents of Brazil and Colombia, have failed to rein in his authoritarian tendencies.

Six top aides to Machado have been sheltered in the Argentine embassy since March. They are currently under the protection of the Brazilian government through an agreement with Argentina, whose personnel were expelled from the country in the aftermath of the election.