Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia mentioned Wednesday he had been coerced into signing a letter distributed by Venezuelan authorities through which he supposedly conceded election defeat to strongman Nicolas Maduro.
In the letter, dated September 7 and addressed to National Assembly chief Jorge Rodriguez, Gonzalez Urrutia mentioned “I respect” the regime-aligned CNE electoral council’s proclamation of Maduro because the winner of the July 28 vote.
But on Wednesday, the 75-year-old retired diplomat printed a message on X from Madrid, the place he was given asylum after weeks in hiding in Venezuela, saying he was made to signal the letter in change for being allowed to depart.
Maduro aides introduced him the letter on the Spanish embassy in Caracas and, he wrote, “I had to either sign it or deal with the consequences.”
Gonzalez Urrutia added “there were very tense hours of coercion, blackmail and pressure. At that point, I considered I could be of more use free than if I were imprisoned.”
The letter, he mentioned, was nugatory because it was tainted by “coercion.”
Within hours of polls closing, the CNE declared Maduro the victor with 52 p.c of votes forged.
The opposition instantly cried foul and dozens of nations refused to acknowledge Maduro’s declare to a 3rd six-year time period except the CNE printed an in depth vote breakdown, which it has not.
The United States has mentioned there was “overwhelming evidence” that Gonzalez Urrutia had gained.
The opposition introduced its personal figures based mostly on polling station-level counts which it says proves Gonzalez Urrutia gained by a landslide.
– ‘Will not be silenced’ –
Gonzalez Urrutia vowed on Wednesday that “as the president elected by millions and millions of Venezuelans who voted for change, democracy and peace, I will not be silenced.”
He left for Spain below the cloud of an arrest warrant — condemned by the worldwide neighborhood — for “serious crimes” associated to his insistence that Maduro had stolen the vote.
Gonzalez Urrutia had ignored three successive summonses to seem earlier than prosecutors investigating him for alleged crimes together with “usurpation” of public capabilities, “forgery” of a public doc, incitement to disobedience and sabotage.
The costs stem from the opposition’s publication of voting outcomes, which the federal government says solely approved establishments have the proper to do.
The CNE has mentioned it can’t publish the voting data as hackers had corrupted the information, although observers have mentioned there was no proof of such interference.
Gonzalez Urrutia’s lawyer Jose Vicente Haro informed AFP on Wednesday his shopper had been the sufferer of “blackmail” by the Maduro authorities.
In the hours main as much as his departure for Spain, Haro mentioned he noticed a person “under a lot of pressure, in a situation of coercion, under a situation of urgency, with little chance of speaking” in a video name.
“I saw a person broken psychologically, emotionally,” he added.
Gonzalez Urrutia changed opposition chief Maria Corina Machado on the poll on the final minute after she was barred from working by establishments loyal to the Maduro regime.
She, too, has been principally in hiding because the vote, apart from showing at a handful of organized demonstrations.
Maduro has mentioned each Gonzalez Urrutia and Machado belong “behind bars,” blaming them for the deaths of 25 civilians and two troopers in protests that broke out spontaneously after his alleged victory was introduced.
Nearly 200 individuals have been injured and greater than 2,400 arrested.
Maduro has managed to cling to energy regardless of sanctions stepped up after his 2018 reelection, additionally dismissed as a sham by dozens of nations.
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