Maduro's hold on power 'unprecedented': 'Cruelty' of Venezuela's govt 'a shock to the world over'

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00:00Now, the Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González has vowed to continue the fight

00:05for democracy after being granted asylum in Spain.

00:09He fled Venezuela on Sunday after weeks in hiding amid political turmoil over the July

00:16election results.

00:18Both González and the incumbent president Nicolás Maduro claimed they won the election

00:23and González was placed under an arrest warrant for a range of alleged crimes and faced the

00:29prospect of decades in prison if he had remained in Venezuela.

00:34Nick Rushworth has this report.

00:40The Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González arrived in Spain seeking

00:45asylum amid a political and diplomatic crisis over Venezuela's disputed July election.

00:52Supporters gathered at the military base in Madrid where his plane landed and expressed

00:56relief that he was safe.

00:58Whoever is in danger under Nicolás Maduro's regime should be safer here and can maintain

01:05their strategy from here.

01:11They forced him to flee.

01:12This only confirms that Venezuela is a dictatorship that's impossible to live in.

01:18If you don't agree with the regime, you have to leave or you might get killed.

01:25González arrived after Caracas granted safe passage.

01:28His surprise departure came just days after Maduro's government ordered his arrest.

01:38The governments of Spain and Venezuela agreed on providing safe conduct to citizen Edmundo

01:43González so he could abandon national territory and he could receive the asylum granted by

01:51Spain.

01:53The Spanish foreign minister says there were no talks on González's exile.

02:01There has not been any kind of political negotiation between the government of Spain and the government

02:06of Venezuela.

02:07The political asylum has been at the personal request of Edmundo González.

02:15Venezuela's opposition says July's election resulted in a resounding win for González

02:19and published vote tallies online to show that.

02:26Nicolás Maduro, now into his third term as president, has dismissed that and says there

02:30was a right-wing plot to sabotage his government.

02:33The US, EU and various foreign governments say they won't accept his win until he releases

02:38proof that he got most votes.

02:43And I'm pleased now to be joined live on the programme by Christopher Sabatini.

02:47He's a senior research fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.

02:52Good afternoon to you.

02:53Thanks for joining us.

02:55What options does González have now that he's safely out of Venezuela?

03:00Well, he has the option of being free, of not having to worry about being jailed for

03:06competing in what was supposed to be an international guaranteed and democratic election, which

03:11clearly the government, by all accounts, including an evaluation of the 25,000 vote

03:17polls, tabulations, or actas, as they're called in Venezuela, proved that he had won.

03:22So now he doesn't have to serve jail time.

03:24So that's a good thing, of course.

03:27But you know, right now it does diminish his leadership in Venezuela.

03:30And you can hear, you can tell from the report that you had before when Alex Saab was kind

03:35of poking him a little bit for leaving the country, although they had forced him to leave.

03:39So his departure is very much in the interest of the Maduro regime.

03:43Having said that, González can now, as a former diplomat, can now travel to other countries

03:48to try to rally support as effectively the president-elect of Venezuela in European capitals,

03:55in Brazil, in Colombia, in the United States.

03:58So it will help to build more of an international momentum.

04:01And by the same token, the person who he was standing in for, Maria Curitiba Machado, remains

04:07in Venezuela and she'll remain a very powerful figure within domestic politics.

04:11And that is her there to the left of Emundo González in the photo.

04:15Right.

04:16Well, let's talk a little bit then about the remaining members of the Venezuelan opposition

04:22who are still in the country.

04:23You just mentioned one of those big names there.

04:25How weakened is the opposition by the fact that González is out of the country?

04:32It's weakened in many ways.

04:33Having the effective president-elect out of the country does definitely diminish his

04:38stature within domestic politics.

04:42But also it strengthens in some ways as a symbol.

04:44It demonstrates the very sheer cruelty and brutality of this regime that forced him to

04:49flee under broad allegations of terrorism that included basically falsifying government

04:56documents as well as trying to incite rebellion.

05:00It demonstrates this is a regime that will brook no criticism domestically or internationally.

05:05And it demonstrates, again, the complete facade of an election that they held on July 28.

05:11So it's an important symbolic moment.

05:12Over the long term, it may very well hurt the opposition because he's not in the country.

05:17But to be quite frank, you know, this is a 75-year-old man who ran as a stand-in for

05:23his country.

05:24You know, it's completely understandable that he had to leave given the charges and the

05:28witch hunt against him.

05:30And in terms of diplomatic support now, González, obviously in Spain, I imagine meeting with

05:36members of the Spanish government.

05:38What kinds of support is he getting from allies in Spain, also in places like the United States?

05:44And is it enough?

05:46He's getting support, broadly speaking, in European capitals and really across the Western

05:51hemisphere.

05:52Josep Borrell, basically the foreign secretary of the EU, yesterday denounced the exile,

06:00the asylum, and effectively declared Edmundo González as the legitimate winner of the

06:05elections.

06:06Tony Blinken in the United States, the secretary of state, did the same.

06:10So I think this will solidify in many ways their personal relationship with him and demonstrates

06:16that he has their support.

06:17The question really is for the international community is what comes next.

06:20They've been questioning these results, they've been demanding the actas, as you can see right

06:23there in the photo, the polling, poll-by-poll results that the government refuses to release.

06:30And the government has not released them.

06:31And so what is the international community going to do next?

06:34Hopefully, this will solidify some sort of coordinated action that involves both negotiations

06:39but also the threat of individual sanctions against many in the regime who are guilty

06:43of what clearly is a fraud.

06:45Do you think Nicolas Maduro is likely now to serve this full six-year term in office?

06:51You know, honestly, I find that hard to believe.

06:54This has been said before, but given the level of repression, given the level of international

06:58condemnation, given the fact that the economy has shrunk by two-thirds in the last eight

07:05or so years, and more than almost eight million people have fled, it's difficult to imagine

07:12how this can persist.

07:13But of course, Nicolas Maduro has defied expectations before.

07:17I think, you know, again, the cruelty of this government is certainly a shock to the world

07:22over and so its willingness to cling on to power is really, you know, is unprecedented.

07:27So he could very well survive, but six years is a long time, international isolation is

07:31a long time, and people are quite frankly fed up, as we've seen from the demonstrations,

07:35since the July 28th elections.

07:38Christopher Sabatini, great to get your view on all of this.

07:40Thank you very much indeed.

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