Venezuela issues arrest warrant for Nicolas Maduro’s rival amid poll dispute

Venezuela’s attorney general’s office said on Monday a court issued an arrest warrant for opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez, accusing him of conspiracy and other crimes amid a dispute over whether he or President Nicolas Maduro won a July election.

Attorney General Tarek Saab shared a photo of the warrant with Reuters via a message on the application Telegram.

The issue of an arrest warrant against Gonzalez would amount to a major escalation in Maduro’s government’s crackdown against the opposition following the disputed election.

Venezuela’s national electoral authority and its top court have said Maduro was the victor of the July 28 election with just over half of the votes, but tallies shared by the opposition show a resounding victory for Gonzalez.

The warrant follows weeks of comments from top government officials saying Gonzalez and other members of the opposition should go to jail.

“This man has the nerve to say he doesn’t recognize laws, he doesn’t recognize anything. What’s up with that? That’s unacceptable,” Maduro said in a broadcast on state television. “Citizens agree that laws have to work and that officials do their job.”

The opposition, some Western countries and international bodies like a United Nations panel of experts have said the vote was not transparent and demanded the publication of full tallies, with some outright decrying fraud.

A Gonzalez spokesperson said they were awaiting any notification of a warrant but made no further comment. The opposition has always denied any wrongdoing.

“They have lost all notion of reality,” opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said on X. “Threatening the President-elect will only achieve more cohesion and increase the support of Venezuelans and the world for Edmundo Gonzalez.”

The opposition has published what it says are copies of over 80 per cent of ballot box-level tallies on a public website, while the electoral council says a cyber attack on election night has prevented its publication of the full tallies.

The warrant request appeared to be the government’s latest salvo in what the opposition says is a crackdown on dissent.

Saab has also launched criminal probes into Machado and the opposition vote tally website itself and detentions of opposition figures and protesters have continued in the weeks since the vote.

Protests have led to at least 27 deaths and some 2,400 arrests.

Gonzalez ignored three summons to testify about the website, allowing a warrant to potentially be issued for him in that case.

The warrant was issued after prosecutor Luis Ernesto Duenez requested Gonzalez be arrested for usurpation of functions, falsification of public documents, instigation to disobey the law, conspiracy and association, all allegedly committed against the Venezuela state.

Lawyers consulted by Reuters said that Venezuelan law does not allow those over 70 to serve sentences in jails, instead requiring house arrest. Gonzalez, who turned 75 last week, is married and has two daughters; one lives in Caracas and the other lives in Madrid.

The US has drafted a list of about 60 Venezuelan government officials and family members who could be sanctioned in the first punitive measures following the election, two people close to the matter told Reuters.

Since the vote, the ruling party-controlled national assembly passed a law tightening rules on NGOs and unions denounced alleged forced resignations of state employees espousing pro-opposition views.

The warrant request came hours after the Biden administration said an aircraft used by Maduro had been confiscated in the Dominican Republic after determining that its purchase violated US sanctions, a move the Venezuelan government slammed as an act of “piracy.”