Venezuelan opposition leader fled – has Maduro won now?

He’s gone. On Saturday, Edmundo González boarded a Spanish Air Force plane and headed for Madrid. The EU country has granted him political asylum. At the age of 75, González joins a long list of Venezuelan opposition politicians who have the autocratic President Nicolás Maduro fled abroad.

For example: Juan Guaidó, who declared himself interim president in 2019. Leopoldo Lopéz, who led protests in 2014. Julio Borges, former president of the National Assembly. All men who tried to remove Maduro from power. And now Edmundo González, the presumed winner of the presidential elections on July 28.

Will Maduro remain in power for good?

“Emigration to Spain was his last resort,” believes Diana Luna, Latin America consultant at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. “Otherwise he – and perhaps his wife and family – would probably have ended up in prison.” About a week ago, the opposition candidate an arrest warrant was issued for conspiracy, usurpation of office and incitement to disobedienceWhat does his escape mean for the future of Venezuela?

For the opposition, González was the great hope of finally ending Maduro’s reign and ushering in democratic change. “But it is difficult to fight against Maduro and his regime in exile,” says Luna. The other politicians before González were also unable to do so. The fact that the opposition politician will be staying in Europe in the future could at the same time increase the pressure on Spain and the EU to position themselves more clearly in favor of Venezuela, the expert believes.

According to Venezuela’s electoral council, Maduro won the July elections with 51 percent of the vote. Because he has not yet presented any results from the polling stations, However, fraud is assumedThe opposition, however, published ballot papers that were supposed to show that González won with 67 percent.

© REUTERS/FAUSTO TORREALBA

For this reason, the EU has not yet accepted Maduro’s victory and is demanding a transparent recount of the votes. Other countries such as the USA, Argentina and Uruguay have gone a step further and have already officially recognized González as the election winner.

In recent days, the air has become increasingly thin for Maduro’s opponents. Six opposition politicians have been sitting in the former Argentine embassy for half a yearto avoid repression. After the election, Maduro expelled the Argentine diplomats, and since then Brazil has administered the embassy – and the six opposition members.

On Friday, the Venezuelan regime also withdrew Brazil’s authorization, and the embassy has been surrounded by police since then. The government justifies this with indications that terrorist activities and assassination plots against Maduro and Vice President Rodríguez were planned in the embassy.

Diana Luna, on the other hand, believes that Maduro wants to send a signal: “No one who thinks differently is safe in Venezuela.” It is not only leading critics who have fled since Maduro came to power in 2013. A quarter of Venezuelans have now left the country. Polls before the elections suggested that if Maduro remains president, millions more could follow suit.

According to the human rights organization Provea, at least 25 people died in the protests in the days and weeks that followed, and more than 2,200 were arrested. “Almost all leading opposition figures are now abroad. The regime is becoming more and more isolated, and the space for criticism and civil society is becoming smaller and smaller,” says the Venezuela expert.

So now all attention is on one woman: María Corina Machado, the actual opposition leaderIn the primaries last year, she had a huge success, winning 90 percent of the vote, and became the face of a united opposition for the first time in years. In January, however, she was excluded from the elections.

In April, González took over: a 75-year-old pensioner and former diplomat who was almost unknown in Venezuela at the time. And even if that changed in the months that followed, Machado remained the true opposition leader who people followed, says Luna. Since then, she has repeatedly stressed that she will not leave the country. “As long as Machado stays, hope will remain in Venezuela,” Luna believes.

© dpa/Ariana Cubillos

However, Maduro’s attitude in recent days and in the entire six weeks since the election shows that he is not prepared to negotiate. “Maduro’s regime is prepared to accept any price – such as foreign policy isolation – in order to stay in power. But it also knows that it has lost legitimacy among the population.”

In order to control and calm the Venezuelans, Maduro is resorting to drastic and even bizarre measures: a few days ago, for example, the president announced that Bringing Christmas forward to October 1 this year“Because it already smells so Christmassy,” is how he justified the decision.

The regime traditionally gives away food baskets on holidays. In a country where more than 80 percent of the people live in poverty, this is a welcome gift. For Maduro, González’s escape may feel like an early Christmas present.