Venezuelan judge issues arrest warrant for Oppn's ex-presidential candidate

A Venezuelan judge on Monday issued an arrest warrant for the opposition's former presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzlez as part of a criminal investigation into the results of a disputed election.

The warrant was issued at the request of authorities who accuse Gonzlez, a former diplomat, of various crimes including conspiracy, falsifying documents and usurpation of powers. The warrant comes just over a month after election officials declared President Nicols Maduro the winner of an election that his opponents say he lost.

Authorities sought the warrant after Gonzlez failed to appear three times to answer questions from prosecutors in a criminal investigation stemming from the disputed election results.

Ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared Maduro the victor of the July 28 election, hours after polls closed. They did not show any detailed results to back up their claim as they had offered in previous presidential elections.

The lack of transparency has drawn international condemnation against Maduro and his allies.

The opposition, however, managed to obtain more than 80 per cent of vote tally sheets, which are printed by every electronic voting machine, and said they show Maduro lost by a wide margin against Gonzlez.

Gonzlez was summoned to the prosecutor's office as recently as Friday. Attorney General Tarek William Saab opened the investigation against Gonzlez after he and opposition leader Mara Corina Machado revealed what they said were the results shown in the tally sheets and published them online.

Maduro's ruling party and the National Electoral Council have refused to publish their copies of tally sheets that the electronic voting machines printed after polls closed.

Instead, as international pressure mounts to release a breakdown of results, Maduro asked the country's high court to audit the electoral process. The Supreme Tribunal of Justice, stacked with Maduro loyalists, concluded on Aug. 22 that the vote counts published by the opposition were false and certified Maduro's victory.

Gonzlez, 75, has not made any public appearances since the day after the election. His campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

Gonzlez has questioned the prosecutors' actions for lack of due process guarantees and accused Saab, a longtime Maduro ally, of being a political accuser who condemns in advance. He rejected the interview summons arguing, among other issues, that they did not specify the condition under which he was expected to appear.

They have lost all sense of reality, Machado, referring to Maduro's government, wrote on X after the attorney general's office published the warrant request on Instagram. By threatening the President Elect, they only manage to unite us more and increase the support of Venezuelans and the world for Edmundo Gonzlez.

An AP review of the tally sheets released by the opposition indicates that Gonzlez won significantly more votes than the government has claimed. The analysis casts serious doubt on the official declaration that Maduro won.

The AP processed almost 24,000 images representing the results from 79 per cent of voting machines, resulting in tabulations of 10.26 million votes. The processed tally sheets also showed Gonzlez receiving more votes on 20,476 receipts compared to only 3,157 for Maduro.