A Venezuelan judge has issued an arrest warrant for former opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González concerning a criminal investigation into July’s election results.

The order was issued on Monday following a request from authorities, who accuse President Nicolás Maduro’s opponent of various crimes, including conspiracy, document forgery, and power usurpation.

The move marks the latest suppressive measure against Venezuela’s opposition, just a month after electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner of a third six-year term in office.

Authorities pursued the arrest warrant after González failed to appear for questioning by prosecutors on three consecutive occasions. The former diplomat, 75, has not been seen publicly since the day following the vote.

The European Union does not recognise either candidate and demands the release of all electoral records.

“Maduro has lost all touch with reality,” opposition politician María Corina Machado wrote on social media platform X after the arrest warrant was issued. “The arrest warrant issued by the regime to threaten President-Elect Edmundo Gonzalez crosses a new line that only strengthens the resolve of our movement.”

“Venezuelans and democracies around the world are more united than ever in our quest for freedom,” she added.

Voting records left unpublished

At the centre of the scandal are records, pursued by prosecutors, which have long been considered the definitive proof of Venezuela’s election results.

Venezuelans vote using electronic machines, which record votes and also provide a paper receipt.

Each of the 30,000 electronic voting machines used in the elections on 28 July transmitted their records to the National Electoral Council.

Hours after the polls closed, electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner, but they failed to publish the results recorded by the machines, as they had done in previous presidential elections.

The National Electoral Council claimed it could not publish the information because its website was hacked.

Who holds the records?

By law, each party participating in the elections is entitled to receive one record from each machine.

The government managed to get their hands on these crucial documents from over 80% of the machines, while its supporters attempted to block opposition representatives from doing the same.

Nevertheless, Machado surprised both supporters and opponents when she posted the records online, claiming that the documents indicated Maduro had lost to González by a significant margin.

An Associated Press review of the records released by the opposition revealed that González received significantly more votes than the Venezuelan government has reported, raising serious doubts about the validity of Maduro’s claimed victory.

As international pressure grew for a detailed breakdown of the results, Maduro requested that the Supreme Court audit the electoral process.

This move drew immediate criticism from foreign observers, who argued that the court was too closely aligned with the government to conduct an independent review.

Supreme Court justices are nominated by federal officials and ratified by the National Assembly, Venezuela’s unicameral legislature, which is dominated by Maduro supporters.

The court ruled on 22 August that the results published by the opposition were false and ratified Maduro’s victory. The ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela refused to publish its copies of the records.

González, who represented the opposition coalition Unitary Platform, was summoned to the prosecutor’s office last Friday, in a move slammed by Machado.

She has accused them of flouting due process guarantees and accused Attorney General Tarek William Saab, a long-time Maduro ally, of being a “political accuser” who “condemns in advance”.

González refused the summons to the interview, arguing that they did not specify the condition under which he was expected to appear, among other reasons.

Euronews