The Venezuelan government has offered a $100,000 (£81,000) reward for information leading to the arrest of exiled opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez.
he fled the country in September and was granted political asylum in Spain after Venezuelan authorities ordered his arrest, accusing Gonzalez of conspiracy and falsifying documents.
Gonzalez has vowed to return to Venezuela before President Nicolás Maduro's inauguration next Friday, accusing the government of rigging the vote.
Shortly after the award was announced, Gonzalez said he was traveling to Argentina to begin a tour of Latin America, where he will meet Maduro's fierce critic President Javier Millay on Saturday.
United Nations Human Rights Committee ordered Venezuela to “refrain from destroying” the results of the vote from the July 2024 presidential election.
The results of the vote – a detailed official breakdown of votes from each polling station – were at the center of the dispute over who won the election.
The government-backed National Electoral Council (CNE) declared incumbent President Maduro the winner, but failed to provide the results of the vote to back up its claim.
The opposition, which with the help of accredited election witnesses collected and published more than 80 percent of the voting results, says they prove its candidate Gonzalez won by a landslide.
Gonzalez was not well known in Venezuela when he registered as a candidate for the country's presidential election in March.
He had never run for public office before and was not even widely known in opposition circles.
But months after deciding to run for the top job, the reserved former diplomat has overtaken Maduro in opinion polls.
Over the past decade, Venezuela has seen a deepening divide between government supporters and the opposition.
Gonzalez's conciliatory tone during the presidential campaign was in stark contrast to that of Maduro, who warned of a “bloodbath” if Gonzalez won.
Maduro's re-election in 2018 was widely rejected as neither free nor just.