(Bloomberg) — Venezuela ordered the arrest of presidential candidate Edmundo González, an escalation of the government’s crackdown on dissent in the wake of a disputed election.
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The move is likely to draw further outcry from the US and other countries that have concluded González was the winner of the July 28 vote. Venezuelan authorities have declared instead, without evidence, that President Nicolás Maduro was reelected to a third term.
Prosecutors are accusing González of breaking the law because the opposition uploaded voting records to show he won in a landslide. González is accused of crimes including forging a public document, incitement to disobedience of laws, conspiracy and sabotage, according to the arrest warrant published Monday on the Prosecutor’s Office Instagram account.
Thousands of citizens, including children, have already been arrested as the regime sought to silence protests in the wake of the election. At least 25 have died, according to human-rights groups. While banned opposition leader María Corina Machado has attended three opposition protests, González hasn’t appeared in public since two days after ballots were cast.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab said Friday that authorities intend to take González into custody after he failed to comply with three separate summons over the uploading of voting records that appeared to show he won the July 28 presidential election by a landslide. Saab had already opened a criminal investigation into González and Machado for incitement to disobey laws, insurrection and misinformation, among other offenses.
“They’ve lost all sense of reality,” Machado posted on X on Monday after the arrest warrant was issued. “By threatening the president-elect they will only unite us more and increase Edmundo González’s support from Venezuelans and the world.”
Gonzalez’s press officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Seized Plane
The arrest order was announced hours after the US seized Maduro’s plane after concluding it was bought and operated in violation of US sanctions, and days after a nationwide blackout which the government blamed on an attempt to “sabotage” the electrical grid by “fascist and extreme-right powers.”
Venezuela’s electoral authority, which is controlled by Maduro allies, said the president was reelected with 52% of votes cast. That claim has been contested by the opposition, which says it has evidence from more than 80% of polling records showing a win for González.
While the US and other nations have agreed with those findings, many are stopping short of declaring González president-elect, leaving room to negotiate ahead of the January inauguration. Ideologically aligned regional peers Brazil and Colombia have called on Maduro to publish the complete voting records showing he won, while the European Union’s top diplomat said Aug. 29 the bloc can’t accept the authoritarian socialist’s self-declared victory.
(Updates with comment from Machado, background starting in the sixth paragraph.)
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