Venezuelan Oppn still hopes to unseat Maduro despite Gonzalez'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 Gonzlez Urrutia.

Machado's group maintains that it has evidence that Gonzlez won the July 28 presidential election by a wide margin against Venezuela's authoritarian incumbent president, Nicols 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 Gonzlez's decision to flee into exile to Spain over the weekend.

She said the former diplomat could fulfill the role of opposition candidate with much greater protection and security from abroad. She herself has gone into hiding in the weeks since the election, while Maduro's government has arrested more than 2,000 people and cracked down o