Maduro rival flees Venezuela for exile in Spain

What happened

Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González, who credibly claims to have won his country's July 28 presidential election, arrived in Spain on Sunday, seeking asylum. Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said González, a 75-year-old former diplomat who replaced her on the ballot after she was barred from running, fled Venezuela because "his life was in danger" and he faced "increasing threats, summons, arrest warrants" from President Nicolás Maduro's unscrupulous regime.

Who said what

In an audio message Sunday, González said his departure was "surrounded by acts of pressure, coercion and threats," but "I trust that we will soon continue our fight to achieve our freedom and the restoration of Venezuela’s democracy." Machado said "Edmundo will fight from outside alongside our diaspora" and return for the Jan. 10 presidential inauguration.

Despite Machado's "positive spin," González's surprise exit dealt a "major blow to millions who placed their hopes in his opposition campaign," The Associated Press said. He joins the "swelling ranks of opposition stalwarts who once fought Maduro only to throw in the towel" amid a "brutal crackdown," including at least four other former presidential hopefuls who also fled to Spain to escape Maduro's persecution. The government's strategy is to force its loudest critics to flee, then "paint them as not being willing to fight, not being brave, not being strong," Francisco Rodríguez, an international affairs professor at the University of Denver, said to The New York Times.

What next?

Since Maduro's loyalist electoral panel declared him winner without providing any evidence, his government has arrested at least 2,000 people, including scores of opposition activists and hundreds of protesters. With Maduro having "solidified his hold on power" and efforts by Brazil, Mexico and Colombia to "broker a resolution" going "nowhere," the Times said, the opposition "has seemingly few options" left for a political settlement.

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