Court: Presidential Challenger Should be Arrested

Venezuelan authorities have received clearance from a court for a request to arrest the opposition's presidential candidate Edmundo González.

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Court: Presidential Challenger Should be Arrested
Photo: Cristian Hernandez/AP/TT

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The announcement comes just over a month after the disputed presidential election, which both the opposition and the sitting President Nicolás Maduro claim to have won.

The prosecutor lists several charges against González in his application for an arrest warrant: including conspiracy, forgery of documents, and unlawful seizure of power.

The request comes after the opposition candidate failed to appear three times to answer questions from Venezuela's Attorney General Tarek William Saab, in a criminal investigation related to the election result. The Attorney General is generally considered to be an ally of Maduro.

Edmundo González has, like the opposition's other leader María Corina Machado, largely lived in hiding since shortly after the election, fearing arrest. He has questioned what he believes is a lack of legal guarantees from the prosecutors, and accused Saab of having a political agenda and having predetermined his guilt.

María Corina Machado writes on X that Maduro's government has lost touch with reality.

"By threatening the elected president, they only manage to unite us more and increase support from Venezuelans and the world for Edmundo González," she writes.

Maduro commented on the whole thing in his weekly TV program.

No one in this country is above the law, above the institutions, he said.

Both the sitting President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition declared themselves winners after the election on July 28, and the unrest that has followed has so far claimed over 20 lives. Nearly 200 people have been injured and around 2,400 have been arrested.

The Supreme Court in Venezuela, dominated by people loyal to Maduro, has backed the president's claim that he won the election. The government-loyal electoral authority CNE has also declared Maduro the winner, although without publishing any detailed election results.

The opposition, on the other hand, has claimed that results from polling stations show that their candidate Edmundo González beat Maduro by a wide margin. An analysis by the AP news agency of the documents released by the opposition shows that González received significantly more votes than the government has claimed.

Maduro's claim to victory has been questioned by several Latin American countries, the US, the EU, and an expert panel from the UN.

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By TTEnglish edition by Sweden Herald, adapted for local and international readers

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