Wanted Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia flies into exile

Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, widely accepted as having won the July presidential election, has fled to Spain where he has been granted asylum.

Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate for the Plataforma Unitaria Democratica party, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.

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Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who is widely accepted as the winner of the country’s presidential election in July has fled for exile in Spain, where he has been granted asylum. The opposition says he fled the country to save his life.

Mr Gonzalez Urrutia, who the opposition says it can prove won July 28 elections in which Maduro claimed a widely questioned victory, arrived in Spain on board a Spanish Air Force plane after a month in hiding in the crisis-hit South American country.

The choice for the 75-year-old to leave was made as “his life was in danger” amid a “brutal wave of repression,” opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said on X.

Mr Gonzalez Urrutia had replaced Ms Machado on the ballot at the last minute after she herself was prevented from running by institutions loyal to Mr Maduro.

Venezuela’s regime-loyal CNE electoral authority declared Mr Maduro the winner of the July 28 elections, but the opposition cried foul and much of the international community has refused to accept the result without seeing a detailed vote breakdown, which has not been forthcoming.

Authorities issued an arrest warrant for Mr Gonzalez Urrutia, who MR Maduro has said belongs behind bars along with Ms Machado. She remains in hiding, save for leading a handful of anti-Maduro protests since the disputed vote.

Mr Gonzalez Urrutia left Venezuela Sunday after ignoring three successive summons to appear before prosecutors, arguing that doing so risked his freedom.

Ms Machado said on X that “the increasing threats, subpoenas, arrest warrants and even attempts at blackmail and coercion against (Gonzalez Urrutia) show that the regime has no scruples or limits in its obsession to silence him and try to bring him down.” She added that “faced with this brutal reality, it is necessary for our cause to preserve his freedom, his integrity and his life.”

Madrid said it would grant asylum to the retired diplomat.

He arrived on a Spanish military plane at the Torrejon air base near Madrid with his spouse around 4.00pm local time (1400 GMT), according to a foreign ministry statement.

Speaking at a socialist party meeting on Saturday, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez described Mr Gonzalez Urrutia as “a hero who Spain will not abandon.”

Venezuela’s vice president Delcy Rodriguez said on social media that Caracas had agreed to the safe passage of Mr Gonzalez Urrutia, who had taken “refuge voluntarily at the Spanish embassy in Caracas a few days ago.”

Attorney-General Tarek William Saab later told journalists Mr Gonzalez Urrutia’s departure marked the close of a piece of “farcical theatre … fatefully named ‘To the End’” – the opposition’s post-election fightback slogan.

He did not say whether the investigation against the opposition figure was now closed.

The European Union’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell, meanwhile, demanded that Venezuelan authorities “end repression, arbitrary arrests and harassment against members of the opposition and civil society, as well as release all political prisoners.”

Numerous nations, including the US, EU and several Latin American countries, have refused to recognise Mr Maduro as the winner without Caracas releasing detailed voting data.

After the election, Venezuelan prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Mr Gonzalez Urrutia over his insistence that he was the rightful winner of the election.

Lawyer Joel Garcia, who has defended opposition figures in Venezuela, said that if Mr Gonzalez Urrutia was charged with everything the government has accused him of, he could face a jail sentence of 30 years.

Authorities said Mr Maduro had won re-election to a third, six-year term with 52 per cent of the vote.

The opposition published its own voting records, which it said showed Mr Gonzalez Urrutia winning 67 per cent of the vote.

Venezuela’s electoral authority said it could provide a full breakdown of the election results, blaming a cyber attack on its systems. Observers have said there is no evidence of any such hacking.

Post-election violence in Venezuela claimed 27 lives and left 192 people injured, while the government said it arrested about 2400 people.

Mr Gonzalez Urrutia was a little-known retired diplomat ­before the election, but became the last-minute presidential candidate after main opposition figure Maria Corina Machado was banned from running by state ­institutions seen as loyal to Mr Maduro.

After Venezuela’s previous election, in 2018, Mr Maduro was proclaimed winner amid widespread accusations of fraud.

He has led the oil-rich but cash-poor country since 2013.

His tenure, which has suffered from domestic economic mismanagement as well as inter­national sanctions, has seen gross domestic product drop 80 per cent and more than seven million of the country’s 30 million citizens emigrate.

AFP