Rio de Janeiro [Brazil], September 20: Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez said he was put under pressure to sign a document recognising the electoral victory of President Nicolas Maduro, in a post on X.
Gonzalez is currently in Spain and said his signature was a condition imposed by Maduro's government for letting him travel to Spain, in Wednesday's post.
His statement came after the president of Venezuela's National Assembly, Jorge RodrÃguez, presented the signed document on Wednesday, in which Gonzalez purportedly acknowledged "the decisions made by the judicial organs within the framework of the constitution."
Gonzalez asserted that he accepted these terms under duress at the Spanish embassy in Venezuela's capital, Caracas.
"There were very tense hours of coercion, blackmail and pressure," he said. The Venezuelan opposition says Gonzalez, its candidate, won July's contested presidential election which installed authoritarian Maduro for another six-year term.
The US and several Latin American countries recognize Gonzalez as the winner of the election and the European Union also questions the official result. Gonzalez travelled to Spain on September 8 and applied for political asylum.
Previously, a warrant for his arrest had been issued in Venezuela on charges including sabotage, conspiracy and usurpation of functions.
He said at that moment, he thinks he would be more useful as a free man to fulfil "the tasks entrusted to him."
"A document that has been signed under coercion is absolutely null and void due to a serious error in consent," he said.
After the election on July 28, the loyalist electoral authority declared Maduro, who has been in power for 11 years, as the winner but did not publish the detailed results. (DPA)
Source: Qatar Tribune
