Venezuela opposition's Gonzalez says gov't would have blocked candidacy by now if it planned to

Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez said on Friday that if the government of President Nicolas Maduro was planning on blocking his presidential candidacy by banning him from public office, it would have taken the measure already.

Gonzalez, 74, a former diplomat to Algeria and Argentina, was named by the Unitary Platform opposition coalition as its candidate for the July 28 presidential election last month, after landslide primary winner Maria Corina Machado had a ban on holding office upheld by the Supreme Court.