The candidate whom many people and some nations—including the US—consider the legitimate winner of Venezuela's presidential election in July has gone into exile in Spain, a major blow to opposition hopes for removing the authoritarian incumbent he ran against. Edmundo González will be granted political asylum by Spain, the BBC reports, and Nicolás Maduro will be left to serve his third term as president of Venezuela. González, 75, had been in hiding since July 30; an arrest warrant had been issued accusing him of crimes that could have kept him in prison for life, per the Guardian.
A Spanish Air Force plane carrying González and his wife landed Sunday at an airbase in Madrid. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez posted that they'd been granted safe passage to restore "political peace," per NBC News. More than 1,700 people have been detained by the government since the election, including more than 100 teenagers, human rights groups say. Six other opposition figures have taken refuge at Argentina's embassy in Caracas, which Venezuelan security forces surrounded over the weekend.
María Corina Machado, the overall leader of Venezuelan opposition, said González fled "to preserve his freedom, his integrity and his life." Maduro's government has launched "a brutal wave of repression" since the election, she said. Spain's foreign minister posted that his government was granting asylum because it's "committed to the political rights and physical integrity of all Venezuelans," per CNN. A European Union statement said, "Today is a sad day for democracy in Venezuela," per NBC News. (More Venezuela elections stories.)
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