“The West puts its values ​​at stake in Venezuela”

Edmundo González stated this Friday in San Lorenzo del Escorial (Madrid) that “Today the West is at stake in Venezuela in defending its fundamental values” and called for the unity of democratic countries in favor of the cause of Venezuelan opposition.

“To the extent that we know how to remain united around these values, we will win this fight,” he stressed in his speech at the IV Meeting for Culture and Freedom of the Vargas Llosa Chair, which was attended by the former president of Chile Eduardo Frei, the journalist Álvaro Vargas Llosa, the Venezuelan opponent Antonio Ledezma and the former president of the Community of Madrid Esperanza Aguirre, among others.

The candidate of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) in the presidential elections of July 28 took advantage of the platform to insist that the opposition coalition won at the polls despite the fact that “Maduro’s only response has been brutal repression.”

González stressed that, although the “destructive dictatorship” of Venezuela has not recognized “its defeat,” the coalition he represents “will continue forward, committed to the search for a concerted solution towards an orderly and peaceful transition.”

The opposition leader recalled that Venezuela played an important role in the VII Ibero-American Summit in 1997, where “it was agreed that democracy is based on values ​​such as tolerance, pluralism, freedom of expression, human rights, civilized coexistence in the framework of law, dialogue, transparency and responsibility of public management.

Although after the aforementioned summit Venezuela “was dragged into the most atrocious populism,” Venezuelans are “heirs of a notable democratic tradition,” from which they will continue “fighting to recover freedom and democracy,” he added.

“We will not stop until we once again establish a government genuinely elected by the people,” he concluded..