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

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is trying to reassure supporters that her opposition coalition still has a chance of gaining 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 against Venezuela’s authoritarian incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, by a wide margin 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 those hopes seem increasingly tenuous since González’s decision to flee into exile to Spain over the weekend.