MADRID: Venezuela’s former presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia said on Friday that he left the Latin American country for Spain because of “extreme threats” to his family.

The 75-year-old, whom the opposition insists won a July election awarded to President Nicolas Maduro, fled with his wife on September 8 after being threatened with arrest for not responding to a summons.

“My departure from the country is only temporary. But that did not stop me from being forced to leave Venezuela because of unspeakable pressures and extreme threats that touched even the closest part of my family life,“ he said at La Toja Forum in Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia. He did not give further details.

The United States has recognised Gonzalez Urrutia’s claim to victory in the election but Spain and other European Union nations have only refused to accept Maduro’s victory and called on the Venezuelan government to release voting tally sheets.

The opposition published polling station-level results which it said showed Gonzalez Urrutia won by a landslide.

“The world knows and recognises the original (electoral) records because we have shown them in a transparent manner,“ and yet “the response of the regime has been to leave in this long period of time ... an alarming balance of dead, persecuted, political prisoners,“ said Gonzalez Urrutia.

Maduro’s claim to have won sparked opposition protests which claimed at least 27 lives.

In a message on the X social media network, Gonzalez Urrutia said he met with the EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell at the forum to discuss “building democracy in Venezuela”.

Borrell referred to the meeting in a separate X post in which he condemned “the repression of dissidents” in Venezuela and called for an “inclusive dialogue” towards a democratic transition.