The Chavista prosecutor’s office summoned Edmundo González to testify about six alleged crimes

A few hours earlier, Edmundo González had made an appeal through a statement: “In the face of the attack against our freedoms and popular sovereignty, I call on all Venezuelans to unite in their defense, because everything is at stake”.

González called on the international community to remain firm and continue demanding transparency and respect for the electoral results from the Venezuelan state. “The peace of our country is in danger.” “Now is the time to fight together for the right we have to choose, to alternate the rulers that we Venezuelans decide with our vote, to respect the sovereign will of the people and have it accepted by all,” González said. Those who have not done so have not appeared in public for weeks.

The newly elected president is not at his usual residence; “He is in custody for the safety of himself and his life,” his daughter Carolina Gonzalez confirmed in an interview. “But he is optimistic and hopeful, working day and night with Maria Corina Machado to restore democracy in the country.”

Edmundo González’s words were published hours after Saab announced during a press conference on Friday that Nicolás Maduro’s rival would be summoned by the prosecutor’s office. “He will have to make a statement about his authorship of the page, which has usurped neither more nor less than the powers that correspond only to electoral power,” Saab said, referring to the website that demonstrates Maduro’s defeat. “He will have to come to this summons to speak gradually and sequentially about his responsibility for his indecencies, his disobedience to the legitimately constituted authorities, before, during and after July 28,” he added. “He will have to show his face.”

Faced with the persecution of Chavismo, many international leaders have shown their support for González, and the latest to do so is US Vice President Kamala Harris. In a letter addressed to González and Machado, Harris assured that her government would stand firm with the Venezuelan people in their fight for freedom. “The United States supports the desire of the Venezuelan people for a peaceful and democratic transition after years of government corruption, abuse of power, and economic mismanagement,” she said in the letter, dated August 16 and made public after Harris was crowned at the Democratic National Convention as her party’s candidate.