GUATEMALA CITY — Venezuelan opposition figure Edmundo González arrived in Guatemala on Tuesday, just days after Nicolás Maduro was inaugurated for a third term as President of Venezuela.

According to Carlos Ramiro Martínez, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Guatemala, González’s visit is significant, and President Bernardo Arévalo is scheduled to meet him on Wednesday.

González, acknowledged as the legitimate winner of the recent presidential elections by several nations, had expressed intentions to return to Venezuela to assume office. However, he retracted that plan last Friday, when Maduro was sworn in, citing inadequate security conditions for his return.

An anonymous airport official from the Dominican Republic indicated that González departed from a modest airport near Santo Domingo on Tuesday, boarding a private aircraft. He had spent six days in the Dominican Republic prior to his arrival in Guatemala.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, comprised largely of government supporters, declared Maduro the victor of the July 28 elections. Yet, in a departure from previous practices, the electoral authorities did not release detailed vote tallies to justify the proclaimed results.

In contrast, the opposition gathered data from 85% of electronic voting machines and shared the findings online, demonstrating that González had achieved victory by a margin of over two-to-one. Observers from the United Nations and the U.S.-based Carter Center, both of which were invited by Maduro’s administration to monitor the elections, acknowledged the authenticity of the tally sheets published by the opposition.

The unfolding political situation in Venezuela continues to draw attention from the international community as tensions rise over the legitimacy of the electoral process and the ongoing struggle for governance.