What’s left for the opposition after the likely president-elect fled the country

Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González abandoned his country on Saturday.

He’s widely recognized as the presidential winner of the July 28 election, but he was forced to seek asylum in Spain when his opponents issued a warrant for his arrest.

Many Venezuelans had hoped for a negotiation that would let González take power, but his departure on Saturday narrowed that slim possibility even more. 

It’s been six weeks since Nicolás Maduro, the autocratic leader of Venezuela, appears to have lost the July 28 presidential election in a landslide. 

According to exit polls and voter tallies collected by the opposition and independently verified by electoral observers, academics and journalists, González won 67% of the vote. But Maduro refuses to leave, and he appears to have the support of the national armed forces.

“When it is my turn to hand over the command, I will hand it over to a chavista and revolutionary president,” Maduro said in televised remarks last week.

Since the election, Gonzalez, a 75-year-old, soft-spoken former diplomat, has been the target of attacks by Maduro and other government officials. Last week, the office of the Attorney General issued a warrant for his arrest, and he went into hiding in the Embassy of the Netherlands in Venezuela before requesting asylum at the Spanish Embassy.

“I wanted to inform you that this morning, I arrived in Madrid,” González said on Sunday in a video shared on social media. “My departure from Caracas was surrounded by episodes of pressure, coercion and threats of not allowing my departure. I trust that soon, we will continue the struggle to achieve freedom and the recovery of democracy in Venezuela.”

González entered the race in March to replace popular opposition leader María Corina Machado, who had been banned from running. 

Angela Henao, a Venezuelan citizen living in Caracas, said Gonzalez’s departure was disappointing. 

“It made me feel sad to see the president-elect fleeing the country because we were hoping to inaugurate him in January,” she said. “But I understand why he made this decision.”

Leonardo Vivas, a Venezuelan professor of Latin American politics, said that Gonzalez’s exile has had a negative impact “because it casts a shadow on the unity of the opposition.”

But he added that it should not be interpreted as complete defeat.

Tamara Taraciuk,  with the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said she agrees. 

“The regime is going to try to use Gonzalez’s departure to demoralize the opposition, to divide it, and it is up to the opposition to stay united and to focus on the uncontested fact: the regime has not backed up its allegations of electoral victory, and it is scaling up the repression.”

However, the options to oust Maduro are limited. The left-wing governments of Brazil and Colombia proposed repeating elections or forming a bipartisan government, but the mediation didn’t go far.

The US has long been involved in Venezuelan affairs and has imposed and lifted sanctions to try to remove Maduro from power. But there appears to be little appetite for more robust measures — at least before the US elections in November.

On Thursday, the Biden administration announced a new set of individual sanctions against 16 people close to the Maduro regime “to promote accountability for Nicolás Maduro and his representatives for obstructing a competitive and inclusive presidential election in Venezuela and abusing the human rights of the Venezuelan people.”

In addition, the announcement said the State Department has identified nearly 2,000 individuals as potentially subject to visa restrictions “for their role in undermining democracy, engaging in significant corruption, or violating the human rights of the Venezuelan people.”

Individual sanctions against government officials and other harsh measures could help fracture the regime, according to Taraicuck. 

“If the international community doesn’t act forcefully now, the possibility of having a repressive narco state that is going to expel millions of people is going to increase.” 

But for Maduro, the cost of leaving office is high. He and his allies are facing charges of narcoterrorism by a US court, and there’s an investigation open at the International Criminal Court against his government for crimes against humanity.

“The International Criminal Court is the only institution capable of ending impunity in Venezuela,” said Génesis Dávila, a human rights lawyer and president of the rights group Defend Venezuela. 

“A warrant arrest by the ICC could have devastating consequences for Maduro because it would force all the countries who signed the Rome statute to collaborate and execute it. Maduro could even be arrested by his own people,” Dávila said. 

But the court is facing criticism for having an inappropriately close relationship with the government. 

In this case, the ICC’s main prosecutor, Karim Khan, has been questioned because his sister-in-law, the international criminal lawyer Venkateswari Alagendra, is part of the team defending the Venezuelan government before the ICC.

Even so, the defending team failed to stop the investigation months ago.

“These critics will force Khan to show his commitment with impartiality and justice,” Dávila said. 

In Venezuela, Machado remains the main face of the opposition. After Gonzalez left the country, she asked the people to remain united and reassured them that he will be inaugurated in January.

Since the election, the government has shut down protests and boasts to have arrested over 2,400 people, including a group of over 100 teenagers. 

Venezuelan resident Angela Henao said that despite huge challenges, she remains hopeful.

“What else can we do?” she said. “We have to stay strong and continue fighting, because it’s now, or never.”