Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has ordered police to arrest opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González as the socialist government continues to suppress its political enemies after a disputed election.
The decision will further anger the US and other countries that say Maduro stole the election from González. Maduro has insisted that voters reelected him to a third term in office on July 28, Bloomberg noted.
The regime has arrested thousands of protesters, some children, as it attempts to quell dissent and silence opposition. An estimated 25 people have died. Although banned opposition leader María Corina Machado has appeared in public at three demonstrations, González has remained in hiding since he was declared the loser in the presidential election.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab said Friday that González will be placed in custody for failure to comply with three separate summons related to voting records that seem to indicate he had an overwhelming victory in the presidential vote. Saab has been investigating González and Machado for incitement to disobey laws, insurrection and misinformation, along with other charges.
“They’ve lost all sense of reality,” Machado posted on X on Monday after the arrest warrant was issued. “By threatening the president-elect they will only unite us more and increase Edmundo González’s support from Venezuelans and the world.”
The arrest order occurred just after the Biden-Harris administration announced that it had seized Maduro’s airplane and flown it from the Dominican Republic where it was captured, to Florida. The US claimed the plane was purchased and operating contrary to US sanctions against Venezuela.
The Venezuelan Supreme Court has affirmed Maduro’s election while President Joe Biden has reportedly offered Maduro amnesty for his alleged crimes if he resigns from the presidency.
Although the Maduro-controlled Venezuelan electoral authority says the president won 54 percent of the vote in the last election, opposition leaders say it can prove that more than 80 percent of polling records indicate that González won handily.
