Antonio Ledezma: “Maduro wants to turn Venezuela into a giant prison”
The former metropolitan mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezmaexiled in Spain, said on Monday that presidential candidate Edmundo González and Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado do not have asylum as an option, “but rather to remain at the forefront of the resistance struggle” in their country.
And, of course, “adapting to the characteristics of what they experience inside Venezuela,” he added in statements to EFE after the president of the Madrid region, the conservative Isabel Díaz Ayuso, demanded that the Spanish government open the embassy in Caracas to Edmundo González to give him asylum.
Statements by the former mayor on González and Machado
“That is not on the agenda of either Edmundo or María Corina. They are determined to be visible, together with the people who are resisting Maduro’s attempt to steal the elections and steal the country from us,” said Ledezma.
He interpreted Díaz Ayuso’s words as a manifestation of concern about what is happening in Venezuela, because “Maduro wants Venezuela to stop being a nation and wants to turn it into a gigantic prison, a large concentration camp.”
He denounced that the Venezuelan president is “kidnapping minors” of age, in reference to the detained teenagers after the elections of July 28. “Maduro boasts of having more than 2,500 prisoners, of building new prisons. In other words, he is carrying out a carnage and visible leaders like María Corina Machado and Edmundo González are not exempt from this persecution,” he added.
He also accused Maduro of using the attorney general, Tarek William Saab, as an “instrumentalist for political persecution.”
González has so far ignored three summons from the Prosecutor’s Office, which accuses him of “conspiracy” and “usurpation of functions” for publishing on the Internet electoral records that would give him victory in the last presidential elections, while the official result granted victory to Nicolás Maduro.
In Machado’s case, this “persecution has been going on for years.” She recalled that “she was beaten in the national Parliament” years ago, her parliamentary immunity was taken away, she has been prohibited from leaving Venezuela and is not allowed to travel on commercial airplanes, Ledezma said.
And his campaign team had to “seek asylum” in the Argentine Embassy in Caracas.
Independent journalism needs the support of its readers to continue and ensure that uncomfortable news that they don’t want you to read remains within your reach. Today, with your support, we will continue working hard for censorship-free journalism!