The winner of the Venezuelan election left
Once again, Maduro has won the game. Edmundo Gonzalez, the opposition candidate of Venezuela and the winner of the country’s election, left for Spain while facing the threat of arrest and imprisonment. He coordinated with the Spanish government to receive asylum and departed Caracas on a Spanish military plane. Gonzalez is joining his daughter and grandchildren who reside in Spain. The continuous public protests that followed Maduro’s widespread election acceptance did not yield significant results. The opposition and their leader, Maria Machado, with strong documents and information they quickly disseminated, convinced many countries that Maduro had indeed reversed the election results and engaged in something beyond fraud. The published evidence from the ballot results was so convincing that some South American countries, which had relative sympathy with Maduro and the ruling Venezuelan regime, withdrew their support. Venezuela’s relations with many South American countries have been severed, and on the day of Gonzalez’s departure, Maduro ended the last ties with Argentina and terminated Brazil’s diplomatic representation in Caracas. In these circumstances, with Venezuela at maximum isolation, the country is highly dependent on aid from China and Russia, and it is unlikely to escape this deadlock. The fate and future plans of the country’s opposition are also unclear, given the ruthless suppression by the ruling government.