CARACAS — Venezuela’s attorney general’s office said on Monday a court has 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 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% 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.