Spanish Senate to support Edmundo González as Venezuelan president

The Senate will emulate the Congress of Deputies on Wednesday and will push forward a motion presented by the PP, which has a majority in the Upper House, urging the government to recognize opposition candidate Edmundo González as president-elect of Venezuela.

The debate in the plenary session will take place one day after the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, met with González in the Congress of Deputies, whom he did not hesitate to describe as “president-elect.”

Coinciding with the discussion of the motion formulated by the ‘populares’, The Venezuelan opposition has called for a rally outside the Senate under the slogan “Venezuela has an elected president”. Thus, people are invited to demonstrate “in defence of the popular victory of 28J, in support of Edmundo González Urrutia and the heroes fighting in Venezuela”, starting at 11:00 a.m. in Plaza de España next to Bailén Street.

In his motion, to which Europa Press has had access, The ‘popular’ maintain that it is no longer enough to demand the publication of the minutes of the presidential elections of July 28 and “offering asylum to those who suffer political persecution and repression for their ideas, values ​​and principles,” in reference to the reception of González in Spain.

“Offering political asylum to Edmundo González Urrutia is a measure that no one disputes as such,” the PP admits in its statement of reasons, stressing that the blockade in Venezuela is not resolved by doing so. “Instead of processing asylum for the person who won the elections, in any case it should be done for the person who lost and refuses to give up power,” the motion highlights.

Furthermore, the PP believes that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, “cannot continue to play the role of a secondary actor, lacking a strategy, while the main role is played by a figure so closely linked to the regime of Nicolás Maduro as the former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whose position towards the regime is understood by very few, both in Europe and in Latin America.”

Senate to recognize Edmundo González as president

Therefore, given that Congress has already taken the step of asking the government to recognize the opposition as president-elect, the PP wants the Senate to expressly urge the government “to recognize Edmundo González Urrutia as the new president of Venezuela, in light of the results of the elections of July 28.”

In addition, They ask the Executive to demand that the Maduro regime “recognize the result” (…) and pave the way for a process of transfer of powers and transition to democracy,” in addition to demanding that he “put an end to mass arrests, political persecution, repression and violence against Venezuelan citizens.”

The EU also calls on the Government to play a “leading role” both in the EU and among Latin American countries “in defence of democratic principles, freedoms and the rule of law.”

Finally, it urges him to “take a position, if necessary, in favor of specific sanctions against the leaders of the Venezuelan regime and to contact the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant against Nicolás Maduro Moros and other suspects for the perpetration of crimes against humanity.”

Crisis with Venezuela

The Popular Party presented its motion despite the fact that hours earlier the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly and one of the strong men of Chavismo, Jorge Rodríguez, had threatened to break off relations with Spain following the vote in Congress, which he considered “a declaration of war.”

Following this, a diplomatic clash arose on Friday when the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, called Maduro’s government a “dictatorship,” recalled her ambassador in Madrid for consultations and summoned the Spanish ambassador in Caracas in protest.

The latest episode to date is the arrest of two Spanish citizens announced on Sunday by the Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, who he accused of being linked to the CNI and of being part of a plan to destabilise the country orchestrated by the opposition. Maduro himself has denounced them as “terrorists”, although the Executive has assured that they do not work for any public body.