After Edmundo Gonzalez flees, what’s next for Venezuela and its opposition?

Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez has fled to Spain, seeking political asylum amid turmoil in his country after a disputed presidential election.

The opposition presidential candidate arrived at the Torrejon de Ardoz military base in the Spanish capital, Madrid, with his wife on Sunday, according to a statement by Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Gonzalez, who has accused President Nicolas Maduro of election fraud, fled the country after an arrest warrant was issued last week as part of an intensified government crackdown on the opposition.

Here is what is going on in Venezuela and what’s next:

What happened in Venezuela?

The National Electoral Council said Maduro won re-election with 51 percent of the vote – his third win since he first took over as president in 2013 after the death of his mentor and charismatic President Hugo Chavez. The United Socialist Party has been in power for the past 25 years.

But the opposition said the results of the July 28 election were rigged. It said its volunteers obtained 73 percent of the tally sheets issued by electronic voting machines and they showed Gonzalez was the real winner of the election. Maduro won 30 percent of the vote, it said.

Protests erupted, demanding the release of election results by individual polling stations.

Maduro’s government has instead cracked down on the opposition protesters and leaders, forcing many to take refuge in foreign embassies. At least 24 people have been killed and about 2,400 people arrested in relation to the protests, according to Human Rights Watch.

Venezuelan security forces currently are encircling the Argentinian embassy in Caracas as six opposition leaders seek asylum inside.

Gonzalez was in hiding for a month, seeking refuge in the Dutch embassy in the Venezuelan capital, followed by the Spanish embassy.

Who is Edmundo Gonzalez?

Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, 75, a retired diplomat, was thrust into the political spotlight when the opposition Unitary Platform chose him to challenge Maduro after the main opposition candidate, Maria Corina Machado, was barred from running. He is not affiliated with any party.

Gonzalez had served in diplomatic positions in El Salvador, the United States and Belgium before being appointed as Venezuela’s ambassador to Algeria in 1991.

Why did Gonzalez seek asylum in Spain?

Gonzalez left for Spain out of concerns for his safety after he was charged with incitement to sedition and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

“His life was in danger, and the increasing threats, summons, arrest warrants and even attempts at blackmail and coercion to which he has been subjected demonstrate that the regime has no scruples and no limits in its obsession with silencing him and trying to subdue him,” Machado wrote in an X post on Sunday.

Gonzalez himself echoed this in an audio recording released by the opposition on Sunday in which he said: “My departure from Caracas was surrounded by episodes of pressure, coercion and threats of not allowing my departure.”

Could he lead in exile?

It appears that Gonzalez will continue to be a leader in the opposition in exile, at least for now.

“Edmundo will fight from outside alongside our diaspora and I will continue to do so here, alongside you,” Machado wrote in her Sunday X post.

Carlos Pina, a Venezuelan political scientist, told Al Jazeera that Gonzalez, even abroad, can be “a megaphone for the opposition’s demands, so I believe the fight can continue”.

What is next for the opposition in Venezuela?

“With the exile of Gonzalez, a new stage in the postelectoral struggle of the opposition begins. That’s clear,” Pina said.

Gonzalez leaving, “from a political standpoint, could have a cost for the opposition in the sense that their main leader is, to put it crudely, abandoning the ship,” Pina said.

It is essential for Machado to stay in Venezuela, he added, explaining that this is because while Machado and Gonzalez have support from many among the Venezuelan public, there’s no guarantee that backing will last unless the opposition keeps its campaign active.

Pina said the opposition “must try to redefine its strategies, keep the mobilisation alive, maintain the political struggle and the pressure for the government to show the electoral records”.

Unitary Platform comprises 10 parties, ranging from centre left to centre right.

What is the government saying?

Venezuela’s government said it has allowed Gonzalez to leave for “political peace” in the country. It has not provided any further information about why Gonzalez was allowed to leave.

Attorney General Tarek William Saab claimed on Sunday that Gonzalez’s departure from Venezuela is a result of pressure from Machado’s party.

Saab told CNN that Gonzalez was “forced to make decisions” by the opposition coalition. “There is an absolute fracture in that extremist opposition,” he said.

Is Maduro increasingly isolated in the region?

Support for Maduro in South America seems to have dwindled, Vanessa Neumann, a former Venezuelan ambassador to the United Kingdom, told Al Jazeera.

“It’s very interesting that the Spanish president put him [Gonzalez] on a plane and granted him asylum,” she said, pointing out that Spain has a leftist government.

Neumann added that Maduro is also having a dispute with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, “one of his best friends”, after Venezuela on Saturday revoked Brazil’s authorisation to manage and represent the Argentinian embassy. Earlier, Maduro had expelled Argentinian diplomatic personnel from Venezuela after the Argentinian government questioned the election results.

“If you’re legitimately elected, standing beside a repressive dictator who imprisons the opposition and won’t publish the results of the election is not a good look. I think it’s starting to fracture the left [in the region],” Neumann said.

Pina agreed, saying, “I think talking about the Latin American left as if it were a single entity is very difficult at the moment.”

The leftist governments of Chile, Brazil and Colombia have called on Maduro to publish the election results, but Cuba and Nicaragua, staunch opponents of the United States in the region, have thrown their weight behind Maduro.

Officials from Cuba, Honduras and Bolivia congratulated Maduro on social media after the election. “The people spoke and the Revolution won,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote on X.

On August 26, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega offered to send “Sandinista fighters” in support of Maduro in case Maduro wanted to mobilise armed “counterrevolutionary” forces.

Venezuela has also received robust support from China and Russia. Both Moscow and Beijing congratulated Maduro on his election victory.

What are the reactions to Gonzalez leaving Venezuela?

The US and European Union do not recognise Maduro’s win and instead hold the belief that Gonzalez is the true winner.

• EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement: “In a democracy, no political leader should be forced to seek asylum in another country.”
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Gonzalez the last hope for democracy in an X post. “We must not let Maduro and his representatives cling to power by force.”
• The Organization of American States, a regional organisation aligned with the US, said on Sunday that Gonzalez was forced into exile.
• Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told Spanish media that he told Gonzalez he is pleased the Venezuelan opposition leader is arriving and “I reiterated the commitment of our government to the political rights of all Venezuelans.”