A judge in Venezuela orders the arrest of opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia

A Venezuelan judge with jurisdiction over terrorism issues ordered the arrest on Monday of Edmundo González Urrutia, who was the opposition candidate in the presidential elections on July 28.

The order was issued by Judge Edward Briceño, just hours after receiving a request from the Attorney General’s Office.

In a communication signed by the prosecutor Luis Ernesto Dueñez Reyes, González Urrutia is accused of alleged usurpation of functions, forgery of public documents, instigation to disobedience of laws, conspiracy, sabotage of systems and crimes of association.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Nicolas Maduro as the winner of the July 28 election, but never published the minutes broken down by voting tables to demonstrate this supposed victory of the president who aspires to a third term.

The opposition, for its part, claimed that the election results were tampered with and that the winner, with more than 80% of the voting records counted, was González Urrutia.

The Democratic Unitary Platform, of which González Urrutia is a member, and which is also led by Maria Corina Machadopublished the receipts from more than 80% of the voting tables on a freely accessible website and claims that it can be verified there that its candidate won the election.

The Maduro government claims that the records presented by the opposition are false.

The opposition rejects these claims, as well as the charges brought against González Urrutia.

Since the early morning of July 29, when the CNE announced Maduro’s supposed victory, there has been protests throughout the country for and against the election results.

As a result, more than a thousand people have been arrested, including minors.

Machado, who has been the face of the opposition and led the campaign that spanned the entire country, said on his X account that the government has “lost all sense of reality.”

“By threatening the President-elect, they only succeed in uniting us further and increasing the support of Venezuelans and the world for Edmundo González,” he said.

This is the first time that an arrest warrant has been issued against González Urrutia, who is a retired diplomat.

He had previously been summoned by the Supreme Court of Venezuela (TSJ) to testify after Maduro asked the body to review the election results.

In a decision criticized by countries such as the United States, Chile and Argentina, the judges of the TSJ, considered to be close to the Chavista government, endorsed the decision of the CNE.

The Argentine government’s Foreign Ministry, which previously recognized – along with other states such as Uruguay, Chile and the Dominican Republic – González Urrutia as the winner of the July elections, condemned in a statement in X the judge’s order.

He also accused Maduro of “to radicalize” and to persecute the “democratic forces” of Venezuela.

“In a context of massive human rights violations in the face of popular protests unleashed after a gross electoral fraud, the regime intends to curtail the fight for democracy and freedom, persecuting opposition leaders, who are victims of a ruthless political persecution, violating all their fundamental rights in a framework of state terrorism,” says the publication.

At the same time, he affirmed that Argentina “will not remain indifferent” to what is happening in the country and will continue “supporting the people in their battle to recover democracy.”

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