Venezuela’s Attorney General Seeks Arrest of Opposition Leader Edmundo Gonzalez

Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez gestures as he arrives at a polling station to vote in the country's presidential election, in Caracas, Venezuela, on July 28, 2024. Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

Venezuela’s attorney general’s office has requested that an arrest warrant be issued for opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez over his refusal to respond to three summons to testify about an opposition website that published detailed information about the country’s disputed presidential election.

The arrest warrant request for the 75-year-old Gonzalez from the Democratic Unity Roundtable, an electronic copy of which was viewed by The Epoch Times, comes as part of a probe into his claim that he was the rightful victor of the July presidential election, in which President Nicolas Maduro was declared by officials as the winner.

The accusations leveled against Gonzalez in the arrest warrant request include usurping official functions, forging public documents, instigating public disobedience, conspiracy against the state, and sabotage.

Venezuela’s national electoral authority and the country’s top court have both said that Maduro won based on a tabulation of just over half of the votes.

The opposition, which had been leading in the polls, disputed this, publishing their own voting records on the website. The records, which were based on ballot box-level vote tallies, showed a resounding victory for Gonzalez.

“We have in our hands the records that demonstrate our historic, categorical, and mathematically irreversible triumph,” Gonzalez said at a July 29 press conference announcing the tallies obtained by the opposition that challenge Maduro’s win.

Maria Corina Machado, leader of the Vente Venezuela party, said at the time that they had obtained more than 70 percent of the tallies, which show that Gonzalez won more than 6.2 million votes compared to Maduro’s 2.7 million or so. By the beginning of August, the opposition said it had obtained copies of voting tallies showing it won with over 7 million votes while Maduro received roughly 3.3 million, a result broadly in line with independent exit poll forecasts.

A number of countries have also cast doubt on Maduro’s victory, including the United States, several Latin American countries, and European Union member states, refusing to acknowledge his win without first seeing detailed voting results.

Protests broke out following Maduro being declared the winner amid lingering doubts and a lack of publication of detailed voting records.

Maduro and other ruling officials have accused the opposition of stoking violence, with over 27 deaths attributed to the protests over the hotly contested election result.

In early August, Maduro said that some 2,000 civilians had been arrested in connection with the protests. He denounced anyone who challenged his administration.

“This time, there will be no forgiveness,” he said during a rally of his supporters in Caracas, Venezuela. “We have 2,000 prisoners captured, and from there, they will go to Tocorón and Tocuyito [prisons], maximum punishment, justice.”

Maduro has also said that Gonzalez belongs “behind bars.”

The U.S. State Department has said that the declaration of Maduro’s victory “came with no supporting evidence” and that it found “overwhelming evidence ... that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election.”

A month later, the department said in an update that the Maduro regime has since “carried out widespread repression to maintain power” amid the protests and allegations of fraud.

Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek Saab has launched criminal probes into Machado, Gonzalez, and the website where the opposition posted its tallies.

Gonzalez has not publicly commented on the Sept. 2 arrest warrant request, though he issued a statement on social media demanding the release of all remaining political prisoners in Venezuela, saying it’s “time to put an end to the persecution and move towards an orderly transition for peaceful change.”

In another development, the United States on Sept. 2 seized the plane used by Maduro in the Dominican Republic after determining that its purchase violated U.S. sanctions.

Jack Phillips and Reuters contributed to this report.