Spain says Edmundo Gonzalez would be in custody if the president had recognized him

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said on Tuesday in the Senate that if the Spanish government had done what the opposition asked of it and would have recognized Edmundo González as legitimate president of Venezuela, Now “he would not be free in Madrid, but detained in Caracas”.

In his appearance before the senators, the minister explained that he met on Tuesday with the Venezuelan opposition candidate for the July presidential elections, Edmundo González, who arrived in Spain on September 8 to request political asylum, after being summoned by the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office.

He added that Spain was “the first European country and one of the first in the world” to demand the minutes of the elections from Maduro and that in its diplomatic response it is thinking of the 200,000 Spaniards who live in Venezuela, including the 2 detainees accused of preparing terrorist acts, It also takes into account companies and workers, among other aspects.

He also recalled that when the conservative PP party governed Spain, it never considered Maduro a dictator, when it was “the same government and the same country.”

The Foreign Minister told the PP in the Senate that “If they are so concerned about whether a dictatorship is or not,” Why don’t they use that term for Franco, instead of approving autonomous concord laws without calling him that name?

“Why don’t they call Franco’s dictatorship a dictatorship?” Albares asked the PP spokesperson in the Senate, Alicia García, who asked him to follow the example of other Spanish socialists, such as the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, and the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, and dared to call Nicolás Maduro a dictator.

«Dare to repeat with Mr. Borrell and me: Venezuela is an authoritarian dictatorial regime,” said the PP spokesperson to the Foreign Minister, adding: “Just think, they have kidnapped two Spaniards to blackmail Spain by using them as hostages.”

García also asked Albares “why they are so afraid of upsetting Maduro, what debt they owe the dictator,” and “what is it that weighs so heavily on Zapatero’s complicit silence.”

Before putting the next question to the government, Lorena Guerra, another PP senator, said into the microphone to Albares as he left the chamber: «Franco was a dictator, now you say it: Maduro is a dictator.»