Venezuelan opposition still hopes to unseat Maduro despite their candidate’s exile

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado tried to reassure supporters Monday that her coalition still hopes to gain control of the presidency despite the departure into exile of their candidate Edmundo González Urrutia.

Machado’s group maintains that it has evidence that González won the July 28 presidential election by a wide margin against Venezuela’s authoritarian incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, despite his claim to have won.

Machado told an online meeting Monday of opposition leaders, reporters and others that her group still hopes to see Maduro leave office in January, even if for voters those hopes seem increasingly tenuous since González’s decision to flee into exile to Spain over the weekend.