Venezuelan opposition leader rallies support in Panama ahead of Maduro inauguration

PANAMA CITY (AP) — Days before Venezuela’s presidential inauguration, self-exiled Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González was in Panama Wednesday rallying regional support for the opposition’s claims that he won the July election against President Nicolás Maduro.

Accompanied by a dozen former Latin American leaders, González met with Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino at the presidential palace, where they were photographed holding what González said are the original ballot tallies that show his landslide victory in the presidential elections of July 28.

“Venezuela is facing very complicated times because the regime insists on clinging to power despite having been widely defeated in the elections,” González said after thanking Mulino for support. “The elections were openly stolen.”

The meeting comes after González left exile in Madrid to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders of Argentina and Uruguay. After the tour around the region, which included a stop in the Dominican Republic on Thursday, González said he plans to go to Venezuela to assume office as president on Friday.

He has not explained how he plans to return or wrest power from Maduro, who has put out an order for his arrest and whose party controls all institutions, including the military.

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The Venezuelan opposition hailed another victory on Wednesday when Colombian leftist leader Gustavo Petro said he would not attend Maduro’s inauguration due to an arrest of a human rights activist in Venezuela. The shift in posture by Petro, who has cozied up to Maduro, represents a key show of support the opposition has been pushing for.

“We can’t recognize elections that were not free,” Petro wrote on the social media platform X on Wednesday.

Still, the opposition faces almost insurmountable odds after being dealt blow-after-blow by Maduro’s crackdowns following the elections, a long way from the roaring popular support they felt ahead of July elections. Maduro’s government never released the official ballot tallies, documents which the opposition said it gathered through a massive grassroots effort.

After claims that the tallies showed an overwhelming victory for González, the Maduro government arrested hundreds of critics and opposition members. On Tuesday, González said his son-in-law was kidnapped.

The crackdown and Maduro’s claim of victory met with sharp criticism across the region. Panama was one of the first Latin American countries to demand from Venezuelan authorities a full review of the presidential electoral results after the country’s electoral authority declared Maduro the winner.

Mulino’s government said it would suspend relations with Caracas until that happened, and on Wednesday the Central American leader only sharpened his discourse against Maduro.

“We want to make it clear to you that Panama is with you and with the legitimacy you represent,” Mulino told González.

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Suárez reported from Bogotá, Colombia. AP writer Joshua Goodman contributed from Miami.

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