Antony Blinken makes statement months after President Nicolás Maduro claimed to have won July contest
The US government has recognized Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia as the “president-elect” of the South American country, months after President Nicolás Maduro claimed to have won the July contest.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, recognized González in a post on X in which he also demanded “respect for the will” of Venezuelan voters.
Continue reading...VP party holds Maduro regime responsible for death of Edwin Santos who had been picked up by security officials
A major Venezuelan opposition party has said that one of its activists was murdered this week after being detained by security officials in the western state of Apure.
Edwin Santos “was murdered after being abducted by members of the state security forces” on Wednesday, Voluntad Popular (VP) party said, blaming the iron-fisted regime of the leftwing president, Nicolás Maduro.
Continue reading...Sakharov prize goes to María Corina Machado and Edmundo González after contested presidential election
The European parliament has awarded its top human rights honor, the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, to Venezuelan opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González for “representing the people of Venezuela fighting to restore freedom and democracy”.
Machado was set to run as the democratic opposition candidate against the incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, in Venezuela’s contested 2024 election, but she was disqualified by the government, so González took her place. He had never run for office before the presidential election.
Continue reading...Rights group in Caracas says at least 40 people affected, as Maduro government continues clampdown on opposition
The Venezuelan government has cancelled the passports of dozens of journalists and activists since President Nicolás Maduro claimed a re-election victory, part of what rights groups said is an intensifying campaign of repression against the authoritarian president’s opponents, the Financial Times has reported.
At least 40 people, mostly journalists and human rights activists, have had their passports annulled without explanation, the newspaper reported on Saturday, citing Caracas-based rights group Laboratorio de Paz.
Continue reading...Venezuela’s president attempts to move on from bitterly disputed election result by declaring Christmas in October
’Twas 85 nights before Christmas when the decorations went up – at least in Venezuela, where President Nicolás Maduro has decided festivities should start early in an apparent attempt to lift spirits and distract minds after the recent election scandal.
A month after Maduro announced that Christmas 2024 would begin in October, residents of Caracas left home on Tuesday to find the capital’s boulevards and plazas decked with LED light strings and sculptures declaring: “Feliz Navidad.”
Continue reading...Edmundo González says he signed election letter under duress as condition for allowing him to flee to Spain
Venezuela’s opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, has said he was coerced into signing a letter recognizing Nicolás Maduro as the winner of the country’s disputed election as a condition for letting him flee to Spain.
The revelation of the letter is the latest strain to the country’s political crisis, which was exacerbated by the disputed election results and González’s recent departure for exile in Spain.
Continue reading...State department says allegations of American collusion are ‘categorically false’ as US navy member identified among foreign citizens detained
The US state department rejected wild allegations of CIA involvement in an alleged assassination plot against Nicolás Maduro after Venezuelan officials announced the arrest of three Americans, two Spaniards and a Czech on Saturday.
The claims of a plot against Maduro – the Venezuelan president, whose recent re-election is contested – were made on state television by Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister. Cabello said the foreign citizens including a US navy member were part of a CIA-led plot to overthrow the Venezuelan government and kill several members of its leadership. In the television programme, Cabello showed images of rifles that he said were confiscated from some of the alleged plotters.
Continue reading...Opposition leaders are adamant their campaign to remove Maduro is very much alive – even as their candidate widely believed to have won the vote has gone into exile in Spain
Against all the odds, they pulled off a once-inconceivable democratic victory against one of the world’s most unyielding authoritarian regimes. Even more astonishingly, Venezuela’s opposition activists managed to prove it, gathering a vast cache of voting data that offered concrete proof of their success.
Yet six weeks after Venezuela’s presidential election, it was the candidate widely believed to have won the vote, Edmundo González, who has flown into exile in Spain, while the apparent loser, Nicolás Maduro, looks set to keep power.
Continue reading...Opposition leader María Corina Machado said exile of key figure Edmundo González ‘changes absolutely nothing’
The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has insisted the campaign to end Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian rule is “stronger than ever”, but the banishing of one of its key figures to Spain has thrown many supporters off balance.
Edmundo González, who the US and other countries have recognised as the winner of Venezuela’s 28 July presidential election, flew into exile on Sunday after several weeks holed up in the Dutch ambassador’s residence in Caracas. An arrest warrant, seemingly designed to force the retired diplomat to flee, had been issued a week earlier.
Continue reading...Edmundo González pledges to push for freedom and democracy for Venezuela after going into exile in Spain amid fears for his safety
The US secretary of state has said Edmundo González “remains the best hope for democracy” in Venezuela after the former presidential candidate went into exile in Spain.
Antony Blinken said on X on Sunday that González’s departure from Venezuela “is the direct result of the anti-democratic measures that [President] Nicolás Maduro has unleashed on the Venezuelan people”.
Continue reading...Opponent of Nicolas Maduro – widely seen as legitimate election winner – seeks asylum in Spain after being accused of a series of crimes
The Venezuelan opposition leader and former presidential candidate, Edmundo González, has gone into exile in Spain, dealing a bitter blow to opponents of the country’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro.
The Spanish government said on Sunday that a Spanish air force plane carrying González and his wife had landed at the Torrejón de Ardoz military base outside Madrid
Continue reading...Opponents holed up for months in the Argentine ambassador’s residence say the building has been surrounded by security forces
Venezuela’s government has said that Brazil can no longer represent Argentina’s diplomatic interests in the country, putting several anti-government opponents holed up for months in the Argentine ambassador’s residence seeking asylum at risk, as reports emerge that the embassy has been surrounded by security forces.
Venezuela’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it had notified Brazil of its decision, which will take effect immediately. It said it was forced to take action based on what it called evidence – which it hasn’t shared – that those who sought refuge in Argentina’s diplomatic mission were conspiring to carry out “terrorist” acts.
Brazil said that it had received the communication “with surprise” and Argentina said shortly afterwards that it rejected the “unilateral” decision by Venezuela. Both countries urged the government of Nicolas Maduro to respect the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations.
Continue reading...María Corina Machado wants struggle against Maduro’s ‘criminal tyranny’ to mirror anti-apartheid movement
The Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, has called for a global movement, similar to the international campaign against apartheid in South Africa, to help rescue her country from Nicolás Maduro’s “criminal tyranny”.
Speaking to foreign journalists as Maduro stepped up his post-election crackdown, Machado said she hoped Venezuela’s struggle for democracy would become “a world cause” just as South Africa’s did in the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Continue reading...Authoritarian president moves up holiday celebrations yet again to apparently distract from political crisis
“Whatever happened to Christmas?” Frank Sinatra once asked. In Venezuela, the answer is that it has been brought forward to October.
The country’s strongman president, Nicolás Maduro, made the curious announcement that this year’s festivities would begin in October on Monday, in the midst of a political bleak midwinter for his crisis-stricken land.
Continue reading...Edmundo González, widely believed to have beaten President Nicolás Maduro in the election, faces arrest for alleged crimes carrying long sentences if convicted
A Venezuelan judge on Monday issued an arrest warrant for Edmundo González, the opposition politician widely believed to have beaten President Nicolás Maduro in the recent election, for alleged crimes that could see him spend the rest of his life behind bars if convicted.
González, a 75-year-old retired diplomat, was catapulted into the eye of Venezuela’s political storm earlier this year when he agreed to challenge Maduro in the 28 July presidential election in the place of the banned opposition leader María Corina Machado.
Continue reading...Move is apparent escalation of pressure on Venezuelan leader over heavily contested claim of victory in July poll
US authorities have seized Nicolás Maduro’s plane in an apparent escalation of pressure on the Venezuelan president, more than a month after his widely contested claim of victory in the country’s national elections.
US authorities confirmed on Monday they had seized Maduro’s jet in the Dominican Republic after determining it was allegedly purchased in violation of US sanctions. The plane, described by US officials as Venezuela’s equivalent to Air Force One, has been flown to Fort Lauderdale in Florida.
Additional reporting Tom Phillips
Continue reading...Josep Borrell and European Council will not acknowledge president-elect as leader without seeing voting tallies
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said its members have given up hope of Nicolás Maduro producing evidence that he won Venezuela’s election and will not accept his legitimacy as president-elect.
Addressing reporters after EU foreign ministers held a video call with Edmundo González, the former diplomat widely believed to have beaten Maduro in the 28 July vote, Borrell announced: “The European Council decided that Maduro has no democratic legitimacy as president.”
Continue reading...A month on from disputed election, Perkins Rocha detained in crackdown that opposition fears will intensify
The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has accused Nicolás Maduro’s regime of “kidnapping” one of her key allies as protesters took to the streets to mark one month since the allegedly stolen presidential election and a cabinet reshuffle left government opponents fearing an upsurge in repression.
Activists say more than 1,600 people have been detained during the post-election crackdown ordered by Venezuela’s authoritarian president. On Tuesday, one of the opposition’s most important figures, the lawyer and spokesperson Perkins Rocha joined their ranks after being captured on the streets of Caracas, seemingly by Maduro’s secret police.
Continue reading...‘I have no doubt this election has been stolen,’ says Chile’s leftwing president after Venezuelan supreme court ruling
Ten Latin American governments and the US have said they “categorically reject” the Venezuelan supreme court’s decision to confirm Nicolás Maduro’s widely contested claim to have won re-election, with Chile’s president declaring: “I have no doubt this election has been stolen.”
Thursday’s verdict from Venezuela’s top court, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, has been widely questioned internationally from across the political spectrum.
Continue reading...Chile’s leftwing president accuses supreme court of ‘consolidating the fraud’ after Brazil and Colombia stop short of supporting result
Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro is facing a growing chorus of international outrage after the government-controlled supreme court endorsed his disputed claim to have won the presidential election.
Venezuela’s opposition has claimed Maduro tried to steal the 28 July election and has produced compelling evidence that its candidate, Edmundo González, was the winner.
Continue reading...