Venezuela’s socialist regime on Thursday announced a $100,000 bounty for information leading to the capture of exiled opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González.
The bounty on González, who currently lives in exile in Spain, comes days before January 10, 2025, the start date of a new six-year presidential term in Venezuela as per the nation’s constitution. Both socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and González, a 75-year-old former diplomat, are planning presidential inaugurations in Caracas on that day. Both claim to have won the 2024 presidential election, which a large number of international observers have dismissed as rigged.
Through the $100,000 bounty’s flyer, the Maduro regime accused González of allegedly committing the crimes of “conspiracy, complicity in the use of violent acts against the republic, usurpation of functions, forgery of documents, money laundering, disregard for state institutions, instigation to disobey the laws,” and “criminal association.”
VTV, the Maduro regime’s main propaganda news channel, described González on Thursday as the “fugitive defeated candidate of the extreme right,” and announced that the $100,000 bounty’s flyer was distributed “at all checkpoints, border posts, and airports throughout Venezuela.” The flyer was also distributed through the social media accounts of the Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigation Corps (CICPC)
González was the only opposition candidate the Maduro regime allowed to participate in the fraudulent July 28 presidential election, appearing alongside a handful of handpicked “rivals” of the socialist dictator. Maduro himself appeared 13 times on the ballot. Maduro proclaimed himself the “winner” of the sham presidential election but, at press time, no Venezuelan government institution, including the National Electoral Council (CNE), has published voter documentation that can corroborate the claimed results.
The Venezuelan opposition immediately contested the election and presented thousands of nationwide voter tallies collected on the day of the election at local voting stations that it claimed could demonstrate that González was the true winner of the election, obtaining more than 67 percent of the votes. Digital copies of the collected tallies were published on a website that the Maduro regime blocked access to in Venezuelan territory alongside several other websites and applications in a new round of internet censorship.
González fled to Spain in September after the Maduro regime issued an arrest warrant against him, accusing González of several crimes related to the sham election. Although exiled in Spain, González has repeatedly asserted that he is “willing to assume the mandate that the Venezuelan sovereign gave me at the polls” and will return to Venezuela to be sworn in as president on January 10.
González announced on Thursday that he will begin a Latin American tour on Saturday, starting with a visit to Argentina where he will meet with President Javier Milei.
In remarks given to the Argentine outlet Infobae last week, Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab warned that González would be arrested if he were to return to his country.
“He has asylum, they granted asylum to the opponent Edmundo González, do you know what it means to be granted asylum in Spain? What does that mean in legal terms?” Saab asked. “That he has to stay in that country. He agreed to stay in that country (…) he cannot leave Spain because he would first violate that asylum.”
“He is subject to a criminal investigation in Venezuela and the most delicate part of all this, when you request asylum, you have left your country and you are looking for, what are you supposedly looking for?” he continued. “What are you supposedly looking for? (…) for that country to give you refuge so that you can be there as he has done, a golden exile.”
Voice of America reported on Friday morning that flyers of the bounty against González were placed across the walls of the Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, Venezuela’s main airport.
González has been recognized as the winner of the July 28 presidential election by several countries such as the United States, Italy, Argentina, and the European Union. China, Russia, Cuba, and other like-minded allies of the Maduro regime recognize the socialist dictator as the “winner” of the election instead.
Maduro’s refusal to publish voter documentation that can demonstrate his victory claims — even to his regional allies such as Brazil’s radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — led to Brazil snubbing Maduro out of a long-sought spot in the BRICS anti-U.S. bloc during the group’s latest annual summit hosted by Russia in October.
According to Celso Amorim, Lula’s top foreign policy adviser, the decision had nothing to do with “democracy,” but instead, it was due to the socialist regime’s “breach of trust” derived from Maduro’s refusal to publish the voter data as it was allegedly promised.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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