Ledezma: “What we Venezuelans want is for Zapatero to be the intermediary for Maduro’s departure”

The Venezuelan opposition Antonio Ledezmaformer metropolitan mayor of Caracas, today asked former Spanish president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to be an “intermediary” for the departure of Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela and the preparation of a peaceful transition.

“I think that what we Venezuelans want is for him to be the intermediary for Maduro’s departure, because the one who won (the elections) is the one who should be preparing to take over Miraflores, to assume the presidency, and President Zapatero has not said a word about that,” Ledezma said in statements to Efe, alluding to the silence of the former Spanish president regarding the former opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González.

Ledezma made these comments after Rodríguez Zapatero admitted this week that he participated “in the task of facilitating” Edmundo González’s ability to leave Venezuela and reach Spain to request asylum.

The former Spanish socialist president maintained that his position in Venezuela remains one of dialogue and achieving a peaceful solution through building consensus, and that this task, in order to be useful, “requires discretion,” he stressed.

Ledezma on the “peaceful transition”

Rodríguez Zapatero “has presented himself as a facilitator to resolve the crisis in Venezuela” and “what we want is for these facilitators to really help Maduro accept defeat and prepare to facilitate a peaceful, orderly, negotiated transition,” Ledezma insisted to Efe, before participating in a forum organized by the Popular Party in Madrid.

Ledezma, exiled in Spainrejected the possibility of holding new elections in his country and asked that “the pressure from outside to inside continue so that Maduro stops the political persecution, so that Venezuela can be stabilized,” and “the only way is to recognize Edmundo (González) as the president-elect and that the conditions be created for him to take office on January 10,” the date scheduled for the inauguration of the president elected at the polls.

Edmundo González, who is waiting for Spain to grant him political asylum, left Venezuela after denouncing fraud in the July 28 elections, in which the Chavista administration declared Nicolás Maduro the winner, although he has not yet presented the minutes that would prove the results of the elections.

«The transition has already begun»

The forum organised by the PP on Venezuela included a message from Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who insisted that the opposition has the records that prove the victory of Edmundo González and the “disaster of the system.”

“Today in Venezuela the transition has already begun,” said Machado, convinced that the “violence of the regime” is “a sign of profound weakness.”

For former Colombian President Andrés Pastrana, there was a “coup d’état” in Venezuela that should be judged by the International Criminal Court, while Edmundo González should “travel the world” to gain international recognition.

Former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls called for coordinated action by EU member state governments after the European Parliament recognised Edmundo González as Venezuela’s president-elect, and stressed Spain’s role in the process.

“Europe expects a lot from Spain” both in the case of Venezuela and in other issues related to Latin America, said Valls.