WASHINGTON — The United States has formally recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez as the country’s president-elect following the disputed July 28 presidential election, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Tuesday on X.

“The Venezuelan people spoke resoundingly on July 28 and made Edmundo Gonzalez the president-elect. Democracy demands respect for the will of the voters,” the top US diplomat posted while participating in the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The announcement marks a significant change in US policy towards Venezuela: up until now, the US and other countries said Gonzalez had won more votes than incumbent leader Nicolas Maduro in July but stopped short of recognizing him as “president-elect.”

“It is clear to the United States, to democratic nations around the world, and to independent international organizations that observed the July 28 elections that opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes. That makes him the president-elect,” a State Department spokesperson told CNN Tuesday.

“The Venezuelan people overwhelmingly and unequivocally expressed their desire for democratic change—the publicly available voting tally sheets say so,” they said.

Gonzalez on Tuesday thanked the US for the move, saying: “We deeply appreciate the recognition of the sovereign will of all Venezuelans. This gesture honors our people’s desire for change and the civic feat that we carried out together on July 28.”

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil criticized Blinken’s declaration, saying on X: “‘The only place you can’t come back from is from being ridiculous,’ so goes the popular saying. However, Blinken, a self-confessed enemy of Venezuela, insists on doing it again.”

In July, Venezuelan electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner amid widespread allegations of vote rigging. The Venezuelan opposition collected and published hundreds of thousands of vote tallies receipts claiming Gonzalez won with more than 70% of the vote.

International observers from the Carter Center and the UN, as well as CNN’s own analysis, concluded the vote tallies published by the opposition to be legitimate.

Maduro remains firmly in power in Caracas and has called the opposition’s receipts “fraudulent.”

Gonzalez, who fled to Spain in September fearing for his safety, has previously said he intends to return to Venezuela in the coming weeks for the presidential inauguration set for January 10. — CNN