Featured image: Venezuelan far-right opposition candidate Edmundo González during a speech. Photo: Ronald Peña R./file photo.
By Misión Verdad – Sept 8, 2024
On the evening of September 7, the vice president of Venezeula, Delcy Rodríguez, reported that Edmundo González, former presidential candidate of the opposition, left the country for the Kingdom of Spain, after a personal and voluntary request for political asylum.
VP Rodríguez said that González had “voluntarily taken refuge in the embassy of the Kingdom of Spain for several days.”
She said that the Venezuelan government, in response to the asylum request, granted “the necessary safe passage for the sake of the country’s tranquility and political peace,” reaffirming “the respect for the law that has prevailed in the actions of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the international community.”
Later, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares confirmed the information, and said that the former candidate, at “his own request, is flying to Spain on a Spanish Air Force plane.” Albares’ statement closed a brief but noisy chapter of speculation on social media about the veracity of what the Venezuelan vice president reported.
The situation has caused a stir in national and international public opinion, as it is an event that strategically changes the scene of the Venezuelan political situation.
González’s departure from the country has taken everyone by surprise, and at first glance it has been a deep emotional and moral blow to the Venezuelan far-right opposition led by María Corina Machado. Until September 6, Machado did not question the former candidate’s commitment to her “Until the end” route, aimed at forcing a regime change through illegal means before January 10, 2025.
No “banishment” or “exile”
The political and informational shock has been such that the opposition has tried to promote a narrative of damage control to limit the blow to the former candidate’s credibility.
This narrative has focused on projecting González’s departure from Venezuela as the result of a negotiation between the governments of Spain and Venezuela or one between the opposition coalition Unitary Platform (PUD) and the Venezuelan government.
However, several practical elements confirm the fragility and shortcomings of this story.
First, the statement by the Spanish foreign minister. Albares stated that González’s request was voluntary and personal, in line with what Vice President Delcy Rodríguez had reported on Saturday evening. Consequently, the so-called “exile” was not an agreed-upon event.
González has put his personal and family interests first, and that is what was stated in his request for asylum granted by the Spanish government.
Second, the information about the plane. The newspaper El País and other Spanish media revealed that the asylum application had been in process for days and that the plane that finally took him to Spain was waiting in the Dominican Republic awaiting the result of the request, where former Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero served as mediator.
Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp revealed that Gonzalez had been staying at his embassy in Caracas since July 29.
According to Veldkamp, the former candidate had unilaterally announced his intention to change his residence and leave the country at the beginning of September.
In short, everything indicates that his decision was made some time ago, without being subject to negotiations between the Venezuelan and Spanish governments or with the PUD parties.
For González, personal and family interests took precedence over political interests, probably sensing that the supposed “transition” he was called to lead was at a dead end, without any concrete capacity for success.
Calculated lies and González’s insubordination to María Corina Machado
Since he came to the forefront in the context of his registration as presidential candidates, it has always been noted that Edmundo González was cut off from the regular practices of the traditional Venezuelan far-right opposition, where cynical calculation, the game of appearances, and the search for scenarios of personal convenience as an end in itself prevail.
He was not an outsider, but an insider of the old anti-Chavista guard, a politician closer to the pragmatism of Manuel Rosales than to the fanatical dogmatism of María Corina Machado.
Reading objective conditions and political calculation constitute an unbending principle of the old foxes of Venezuelan far-right politics.
On July 30, once the main elements of the coup d’état were deactivated, the calculation changed.
María Corina Machado’s suicidal gamble put González in a vulnerable position, unacceptable for someone who has made a low profile, diplomatic, and behind-the-scenes operations his life’s work.
In the face of a change of scenery and attitude, Henry Ramos Allup’s “bending over so as not to break” principle returned to the center-stage.
A change in behavior could already be seen in González’s September 4 letter to Attorney General Tarek William Saab that represented a political twist.
In the letter, Edmundo González recognized the Venezuelan institutions and distanced himself from the publication of the so-called “voting records,” in a clear sign of disagreement with María Corina Machado.
Meanwhile, his lawyer, José Vicente Haro, took on the public defense of the former candidate and said, in response to the media’s questions, that González was not staying in any embassy and that he had no plans to leave the country.
“Edmundo González will remain in Venezuelan territory,” Haro said just five days ago, in an attempt to ease the anxiety in the opposition.
Finally, it has been proven that González was playing shadow theater. At the same time that Haro sent González’s message of security and calm to the opposition, he was quietly negotiating his asylum in Spain, without consulting or establishing a negotiation with PUD and María Corina Machado.
Machado was the first victim of Edmundo González’s plot. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez was the one who first broke the news of González’s escape.
Hours earlier, Machado was fully focused on the police presence around the Argentinian embassy in Caracas, where members of her closest team are sheltering, which indicated that González’s moves were not known to her, nor was it among her priorities to remain in constant contact with him.
Through her X account, Machado attempted to rectify the situation with a long message suggesting that Edmundo’s self-exile does not imply a failure or a political defeat.
However, her story has not been able to fully overcome the disappointmentof her supporters, since it is an incontestable fact that González made his decision in secret, without giving explanations to Machado or his voters. These are signs of enormous weakness of the opposition in the face of the government of Nicolás Maduro.
Venezuela’s Attorney General: Edmundo González’s Letter ‘Totally Out of Place’
Manipulation of history and the Guaidó mirror
In political terms, the silent flight from the country of a “political leader” who allegedly crushed Chavismo with a historic 70% vote, and who was in the process of leading a supposed “transition” to take power soon, can only be understood as a political defeat. This defeat has caused an enormous moral and emotional cost downstream for those who trusted González’s narrative that the definitive fall of Nicolás Maduro was a done deal.
Right now, as a form of compensation, a narrative has been deployed based on the manipulation of historical precedents: comparing the self-exile of Edmundo González with the political manipulations of former Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt from abroad to bring about the downfall of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez. In this way, the illusion of a triumphant return is sold, with González’s stay in Madrid projected as “necessary” and “decisive” for the agenda of regime change in Venezuela.
This narrative can hardly have political or historical substance, since history has confirmed that there is a direct correlation, in the case of opposition political figures, between fleeing Venezuela and losing political capital and influence. The Guaidó case confirms this.
In the collective memory of the far-right opposition, the mixture of rage and frustration towards a Guaidó who, once upon a time, also promised to continue “the fight” from abroad, is all too alive.
In any case, González’s flight confirms the closing of a political chapter, where the imminence of the “transition” in Venezuela is becoming more and more unreal.
The main loser is none other than María Corina Machado, who has tried to sell each misstep as part of a “robust strategy” that continues to have no practical effect in reality.
Misión Verdad
Misión Verdad is a Venezuelan investigative journalism website with a socialist perspective in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution
