Venezuelan Authorities Seek Arrest Warrant for Opposition Leader After Disputed Election Results
CARACAS – Venezuelan authorities on Monday sought an arrest warrant for the opposition’s former presidential candidate Edmundo González, just over a month after election officials declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner of a disputed election that his opponents say he lost.
The prosecutor seeking the warrant in its request to a judge focused on terrorism-related crimes cites various charges against González, a former diplomat, including conspiracy, falsifying documents, and usurpation of powers.
The request comes after González failed to appear three times to answer questions from prosecutors in a criminal investigation stemming from the disputed election results.
Ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared Maduro the victor of the July 28 election, hours after polls closed. They did not show any detailed results to back up their claim as they had offered in previous presidential elections. The lack of transparency has drawn international condemnation.
The opposition, however, managed to obtain more than 80% of vote tally sheets, which are printed by every electronic voting machine, and said they show Maduro lost by a wide margin against González.
González was summoned to the prosecutor’s office as recently as Friday. Attorney General Tarek William Saab opened the investigation against González after he and opposition leader María Corina Machado revealed what they said were the results shown in the tally sheets and published them online.
“They have lost all sense of reality,” Machado, referring to Maduro’s government, wrote on X after the Attorney General’s Office published the warrant request on Instagram. “By threatening the President Elect, they only manage to unite us more and increase the support of Venezuelans and the world for Edmundo González.”
An AP review of the tally sheets released by the opposition indicates that González won significantly more votes than the government has claimed. The analysis casts serious doubt on the official declaration that Maduro won.
The AP processed almost 24,000 images representing the results from 79% of voting machines, resulting in tabulations of 10.26 million votes. The processed tally sheets also showed González receiving more votes on 20,476 receipts compared to only 3,157 for Maduro.
Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.
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