Edmundo González does not attend second summons before the Public Prosecutor’s Office

Opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia did not attend a second summons from the Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday to testify in a criminal investigation against him after reporting fraud in the presidential elections of July 28.

The meeting was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. (14:00 GMT), but Gonzalez did not show up. This was no surprise: the rival of re-elected President Nicolas Maduro is in hiding and has not appeared in public for three weeks.

The 74-year-old career diplomat who replaced opposition leader María Corina Machado as candidate claims victory and claims to have the evidence to prove it. The claim, however, hits the institutional wall, accused of serving the re-elected president Nicolás Maduro.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Maduro the winner with 52% of the votes, although without publishing the details of the result, and this in turn was validated by the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ).

The Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating him for allegedly committing “usurpation of functions” and “forging public documents.” These crimes could theoretically lead to a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.

The coalition that supported his candidacy, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), denounced “judicial harassment” against González, who on Sunday called the attorney general, Tarek William Saab, a “political accuser” for promoting “a subpoena without guarantees of independence and due process.”

The PUD – made up of 10 opposition parties – denounced that “the repeated summons by the Public Prosecutor’s Office seeks to justify a leadership mandate against our winning candidate, to accentuate his persecution.”

The Public Prosecutor’s Office has not yet commented on a possible third summons.

It is an irregular call, says González

The first summons was sent on Saturday and, like the second, did not specify the capacity in which he was summoned: defendant, witness or expert, according to Venezuelan law. It speaks of “giving an interview in relation to the facts that this office is investigating.”

“This is a totally irregular summons and is designed precisely to try to make a mistake,” Zair Mundaray, a former Venezuelan prosecutor, told AFP. “We are faced with an obvious political persecution trick that is not formal.”

González last appeared in public two days after the election, at an opposition rally in Caracas. Since then, he has limited himself to making statements via the Internet.

Maduro called him a “coward,” while Saab blames him and Machado for acts of violence in post-election protests that left 27 dead – 2 of them soldiers -, almost 200 injured and more than 2,400 arrested.

The president called for jail time for both of them.

“There are no more pardons,” said the powerful Chavista leader Diosdado Cabello. “Anyone who attacks institutions must assume responsibility.”

Act kills sentence!

Machado – also under criminal investigation – called for protests on Wednesday 28, one month before the elections. “A record kills a sentence!” she wrote on social media in reference to the copies of more than 80% of the voting records that she published on a website, also targeted by Saab’s investigation. Chavismo also called for a march that same day.

Machado is among three finalists for the Council of Europe’s Vaclav Havel Prize, which recognises actions in defence of human rights, the organisation announced on Tuesday.

The independence of the CNE and the TSJ is being questioned by a UN mission assessing the human rights situation in Venezuela. The United States, 10 Latin American countries and the head of European Union diplomacy, Josep Borrell, rejected the ruling of the highest court.

In contrast, countries in the ALBA alliance – created in 2004 by socialist leaders Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro – expressed support for Maduro.

In efforts to bring about a negotiation between Maduro and the opposition, the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Colombia, Gustavo Petro, insisted in a joint statement that “disaggregated and verifiable” results must be published.