Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate flees to exile in Spain

Former Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez has fled into exile after being granted asylum in Spain (Ariana Cubillos/AP)

Former Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez has fled into exile after being granted asylum in Spain, delivering a major blow to millions who placed their hopes in his campaign to end two decades of single-party rule.

The surprise departure of the man who Venezuela’s opposition and several foreign governments consider the legitimate winner of July’s presidential race was announced by Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez late on Saturday night.

She said the government decided to grant Mr Gonzalez safe passage out of the country, just days after ordering his arrest, to help restore “the country’s political peace and tranquillity”.

Neither Mr Gonzalez nor opposition leader Maria Corina Machado have commented.

Meanwhile, Spain’s centre-left government said the decision to abandon Venezuela was Mr Gonzalez’s alone and he left on a plane sent by the country’s air force.

Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told Spanish national broadcaster RTVE, while en route to China with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez for a state visit, that his government will grant Mr Gonzalez political asylum as he has requested.

“I have been able to speak to (Mr Gonzalez) and once he was aboard the airplane he expressed his gratitude toward the Spanish government and Spain,” Mr Albares said.

“Of course I told him we were pleased that he is well and on his way to Spain, and I reiterated the commitment of our government to the political rights of all Venezuelans.”

Mr Albares said Mr Gonzalez had spent an unspecified number of days at the Spanish Embassy in Caracas before his departure.

Protesters in the Catia neighbourhood of Caracas demonstrate against Venezuela’s official election results declaring President Nicolas Maduro the winner (Cristian Hernandez/AP)

Mr Gonzalez, a 75-year-old former diplomat, was a last-minute stand-in when Ms Machado was banned from running.

He was previously unknown to most Venezuelans, but his campaign nevertheless rapidly ignited the hopes of millions desperate for change after a decade-long economic freefall.

While President Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner of the July vote, most Western governments have yet to recognise his victory and are instead demanding that authorities publish a breakdown of votes.

Meanwhile, tally sheets collected by opposition volunteers from more than two-thirds of the electronic voting machines indicate that Mr Gonzalez won by a margin of more than two to one.

The tally sheets have long been considered the ultimate proof of election results in Venezuela.

In previous presidential elections, the National Electoral Council published the results of each of the more than 30,000 voting machines online, but the Maduro-controlled panel did not release any data this time, blaming an alleged cyber attack mounted by its opponents from North Macedonia.

Attorney General Tarek William Saab, a staunch Maduro ally, sought Mr Gonzalez’s arrest after he failed to appear three times in connection with a criminal investigation into what it considers an act of electoral sabotage.

Mr Saab told reporters the voting records the opposition shared online were forged and an attempt to undermine the National Electoral Council.

Experts from the United Nations and the Carter Centre, which at the invitation of Mr Maduro’s government observed the election, determined the results announced by electoral authorities lacked credibility.

In a statement critical of the election, the UN experts stopped short of validating the opposition’s claim to victory, but they said the voting records it published online appear to exhibit all of the original security features.