Venezuelan opposition leader and former presidential candidate, Edmundo González, is on a tour of the Americas and has met with various right-wing Latin American heads of state as well as US President Joe Biden. The tour takes place just days before the swearing in of Nicolás Maduro on January 10.
González, who left Venezuela for Spain after the presidential elections last year, has claimed he will return to Venezuela to assume the presidency on January 10. The opposition has also called for a massive mobilization on January 10. “Everyone in the streets of our beloved country!”, wrote González, next to a video uploaded by María Corina Machado stating ”Maduro is not going to leave alone. We have to make him leave.”
Venezuela’s 2024 presidential elections
Venezuela held its presidential elections on July 28, 2024. Just past midnight on July 29, the president of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, Elvis Amoroso, announced that with 80% of the ballots counted, there was an irreversible trend pointing towards a Maduro victory with 51% of the votes, and González with 44%. A few days later, with 96% of the votes counted, the CNE confirmed that Maduro had received 51.95% of the votes and Edmundo González 43.18%.
Opposition leaders did not hesitate in crying “fraud” and by July 29, violent protests had been launched in a handful of cities across the country with far-right mobs attempting to block major roads, launching attacks on buses, police cars, and members of the country’s security forces, insisting that the opposition candidate had triumphed. After a few days of rallies, González left Venezuela for Spain, where he continued to claim that he had won the elections.
On September 2, Venezuelan Judge Edward Briceño approved the request from the Attorney General to issue a warrant for González’s arrest for usurpation of functions, forgery of public documents, instigation to disobey laws, conspiracy, sabotage of systems, and crimes of association. Last week, the Scientific, Criminal and Forensic Investigations Agency offered a USD 100,000 reward for information on González’s whereabouts.
González has promised that, despite the arrest warrant against him, he will enter Venezuela “by any means necessary”.
González’s appeal to the armed forces fails
On January 5, González posted a message addressed to the Venezuelan Armed Forces in which he stated “On January 10, by the sovereign will of the Venezuelan people, I must assume the role of Commander in Chief [of the Armed Forces]…It is necessary to put an end to a leadership that has distorted the fundamental and moral principles of our Armed Forces…As of January 10, we must act with determination and unity to protect our Venezuela.”
In response to these statements, the Venezuelan Secretary of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, together with the most important military leaders, reiterated their loyalty.“Let the whole world know: next January 10, 2025, we will ratify the irreducible commitment with the Venezuelan democracy and we will recognize the citizen Nicolás Maduro Moros as Constitutional President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, re-elected for the period 2025-2031, to whom, as our Commander in Chief, we will swear loyalty, obedience, and subordination.”
While he appears to have failed in his move to break the loyalty of the military by a social media video, González has been touring the Americas and attempting to drum up support for his “victory” in other ways.
González in the Southern Cone
His tour began on January 4 in Buenos Aires, alongside his ally, the ultra-right-wing Javier Milei, one of the presidents who recognized González’s alleged victory. Milei’s government has also had several diplomatic tensions with the current Venezuelan government. In front of the Casa Rosada, in the Plaza de Mayo, several dozens of Venezuelans who reject Maduro’s government gathered and applauded when González and Milei appeared on the balcony of the presidency holding hands.
Welcoming him as a head of state, Milei told González “It is an honor that you are [in Argentina] and that you are visiting us. We are doing what the cause of freedom requires…Argentina is the home of all good Venezuelans.” The Argentine Foreign Minister, Gerardo Werthein, affirmed “[González] has the full support of Argentina, because we want to see a free Venezuela”.
A few hours later, González went to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, where he met with outgoing right-wing president, Luis Lacalle Pou. The meeting took place behind closed doors.
According to an official statement from the Uruguayan Secretariat of State, “The Uruguayan government has condemned the dictatorial regime of Nicolás Maduro in all international forums in which it has participated…For a Venezuela that soon finds the path to democracy and freedom!”
González visits Biden and other right-wing politicians in the US
By January 6, González was already in the United States for meetings with several personalities of the political establishment, who have never ceased to reject the Chavista-led process in Venezuela.
The most important meeting was with the President of the United States, Joe Biden, about which González commented, “I have had a long meeting with President Biden. His commitment to a peaceful and orderly transition in Venezuela is intact. For 45 minutes we were able to discuss in depth how positive the expansion of democracy starting in Venezuela will be for the region. Thank you, President Biden!”
For his part, Biden said “Today I hosted Venezuela’s President-elect, Edmundo González, a man whose campaign inspired millions and one who should be taking the oath of office in four days. The people of Venezuela deserve a peaceful transfer of power to the true winner of their presidential election.”
Read: History repeats itself as US announces it recognizes Edmundo González as president-elect of Venezuela
González also used his visit to meet with Congress members María Elvira Salazar, Carlos A. Gimenez, Mario Díaz-Balart, and Mike Waltz, whom he thanked for considering Venezuela “A cause for all”. About the meeting, Salazar said “From the US Congress, my colleagues and I are pleased”.
Another important meeting González held was with Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States, who has been an ardent opponent of the Chavista governments. On his X account, Almagro wrote, “Today I received Edmundo González at the OAS headquarters to reiterate our commitment to the defense of democracy and full respect for Human Rights in Venezuela. Respect for the sovereign will of the Venezuelan people is an ethical and political imperative for which we will continue to fight.”
After he visits Washington, González plans to visit the Dominican Republic and Panama, whose right-wing presidents have repeatedly attacked the Maduro government, and with whom there are serious diplomatic tensions.
The real reason for the tour
The somewhat surprise tour of González has left many wondering what motivated it and what the opposition has in store for the coming days, and weeks.
According to Alvaro Suzzarini, the director of Venezuela News Magazine, the tour has multiple goals and stopping the inauguration may not be one of them: “If his goal was to stop Nicolás Maduro from swearing in, well that goal is a defeat foretold.” He explained to Peoples Dispatch, “His same circle of close right-wing intellectuals here in Venezuela have already said that is improbable…Even though he has a complaint about the election results, what is certain is that these results were backed by the National Electoral Council (CNE), the Supreme Court, and the National Assembly and Armed Forces. So this would give him zero territorial and institutional control, which means that he is not able to make his claim effective within the country.”
Instead, Suzzarini argues, González’s tour of the Americas may respond more to internal power dynamics within the opposition and a desire to “displace those who had been in charge of the dialogue with the United States, which was still the so-called 2015 National Assembly, which is no more than a coalition of right-wing parties led by the ultra-right Popular Will party of Leopoldo López and Juan Guaidó.”
In this tour, Edmundo González was accompanied by opposition figures such as María Corina Machado, Antonio Ledezma, David Smolansky, “which are even more radical than the sector led by Leopoldo López and with deeper roots in the Venezuelan oligarchy.” These figures, Suzzarini claims, “were able to present themselves as the interlocutors in negotiations that the opposition may have with its primary international, financial, logistical, and political backer which is the United States.”
Their positioning as spokespersons of the opposition goes beyond political recognition, “this gives them positions on the boards, the refineries, in Sweden, in the Dominican Republic, in Bonaire, in the Netherlands, in the gold legal dispute in the UK, and it makes them the recipients of all the aid from the different NGOs and organizations, because of course there is a lot of money invested in the Venezuelan opposition,” Suzzarini explains.
In addition to the personal aspirations of those figures, the current moves of the opposition serve a broader political purpose. Alvaro Suzzarini concludes: “The ultimate goal, is not to be sworn in, it is to once again build hope within the opposition electorate, with the people who are against the government, to create a situation of political momentum and work for a rupture, for a rebellion within the Armed Forces, within Chavismo, and within the government.”
