Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said Sunday that former candidate Edmundo Gonzalez will continue fighting from exile and said he will be sworn in as Venezuela’s president on January 10, the date set by the Constitution.
“Let this be very clear to everyone: Edmundo will fight from outside alongside our diaspora and I will continue to do so here, alongside you,” he wrote on X, hours after it became known that González Urrutia, 75, traveled to Spain after requesting political asylum.
In her statement, Machado stressed that after González Urrutia’s “victory”, a “wave of repression” was unleashed against Venezuelans, including “attacks against the president-elect and his entourage”, which were considered by international organizations as “state terrorism”.
“His life was in danger, and the increasing threats, summons, arrest warrants and even attempts at blackmail and coercion to which he has been subjected, demonstrate that the regime has no scruples or limits in its obsession with silencing him or trying to subdue him,” he said. “In the face of this brutal reality, it is necessary for our cause to preserve his freedom, his integrity and his life,” he continued.
Along the same lines The Democratic Unitary Platform spoke outthe coalition of opposition parties that nominated González Urrutia. He said that his decision to ask for the protection of the Government of Spain “confirms the serious situation of state terrorism” to which those who defend the popular will expressed on July 28 are subjected.
“It is strategic, in order to preserve the popular will that he represents today, to keep him free and with full capacity to move so that, as a single team, together with the leader María Corina Machado and the rest of the political and social organizations, we can continue forward on the challenging path of ensuring that the truth prevails and that on January 10, as ordered by the Constitution, we can have his swearing-in as President in office,” said a statement.
Machado, the winner of the presidential primary but disqualified from holding public office, said that “the operation of the regime and its allies is further evidence of their criminal nature, which delegitimizes them and sinks them further every day.”
“Once again they were wrong, their attempted coup against popular sovereignty will not come to fruition,” he said, calling for “serenity, courage and firmness.”
The 56-year-old former parliamentarian and engineer traveled the country campaigning for González Urrutia, after several attempts to register candidates, after she was prevented from registering as a candidate.
González Urrutia is the subject of an arrest warrant for publishing on a website a copy of the minutes kept by his polling station witnesses in the presidential elections of July 28, which gave him victory with 67% of the votes.
More than a month after the elections, the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela, which declared Nicolás Maduro the winner for a third term, has not released disaggregated results despite repeated requests from much of the international community.
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