What a twist the Popular Party had on Sunday when it learned that Edmundo González was traveling on a plane sent by the government of Pedro Sánchez to take him to Spain. It was less concerned about the situation experienced by González than about the PSOE presenting itself as a defender of Nicolas Maduro’s opponents. Before waiting to know why the opposition candidate in the presidential election had decided to leave Venezuela, it launched into criticism of the government that it had allegedly favored Maduro’s interests. And without thinking about it at all, it seemed contradictory.
“Eliminating Edmundo Gonzalez without recognizing him as the legitimate president does not serve democracy, but to eliminate a problem of the dictatorship”, Esteban González Pons said. “It is not the elected president of Venezuela who should have received a bridge of money, but rather the criminal usurper,” wrote Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo. At the height of her delirium, Paloma Martín almost insulted González: “The elected president of Venezuela should not leave his country like a criminal.”
They did not even take the time to think about what the Minister of Foreign Affairs had already said. Edmundo González, a 75-year-old retired diplomat with a frail appearance, had asked for help from Spain to leave his country. After the elections, he had taken refuge in the Dutch embassy and, a few days ago, in the Spanish embassy, when his decision had already been made.
The Maduro government had issued an arrest warrant against him through the attorney general. If the arrest were to take place, there would not be much doubt about the incompatibility of the Venezuelan political system with a normal democracy, but the price to pay for the candidate’s health could be very high.
María Corina Machado confirmed this with a long tweet explaining that everything had been done to protect his physical integrity: “His life was in danger and the threats, summonses, arrest warrants and even attempts at blackmail and coercion by those who were subjected to demonstrate that the regime has no scruples or limits in its obsession with silencing him and trying to subdue him.
But that didn’t matter in the PP. From a sofa in his house, its leaders decided that González had left the country “like a criminal.”
For the PP, the main thing was to present the government as a great ally of Venezuela. That same weekend, Sánchez had called González a “hero” at the PSOE Federal Committee. It is a strange way of supporting Maduro.
Minister José Manuel Albares completed the description of the Government’s position with two priorities, as he explained them on Monday in an interview with Onda Cero. “The objective is to protect Venezuelan political leaders whose fundamental rights are currently under threat. This is an absolute red line for the Spanish government,” he said first. He was obviously referring to opposition leaders. Government members are not threatened with arrest.
Second, “to ensure that the democratic will of Venezuelans, freely expressed on July 28, triumphs once and for all.” Albares’ words leave little doubt about his intention. He does not believe that Maduro’s official victory is real.
To finish confirming this, he reiterated that the government will not recognize the official result of the elections that gave victory to Maduro until the complete electoral records are made public.
Venezuelan law establishes a period of thirty days for the dissemination of the minutes, as stipulated in Article 125 of the Electoral Law: “The National Electoral Council shall order the publication of the results of the electoral processes in the Electoral Gazette of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, within thirty (30) days following the proclamation of the elected candidates.
More than forty days have passed since the election date and nothing is known about these data. The results by cities and regions are not provided. Only the national result is known in number of votes and percentage. The website of the National Electoral Council is still not working.
The Spanish government’s position is similar to that of the left-wing governments of Brazil, Colombia and Chile. Attempts to promote a negotiated solution have so far been of little use, nor have they succeeded in preventing the wave of arrests in Venezuela (human rights groups estimate that there are currently 1,700 detainees for political reasons).
Brazil had already warned of the possible consequences of González’s arrest. Celso Amorim, Lula’s top foreign policy adviser, confirmed this on September 3: “If the Venezuelan authorities arrested González, it would be a political detention and we do not accept that there are political prisoners.” “We cannot deny that there is an authoritarian escalation in Venezuela. We do not think there is an opening for dialogue. There is a very strong reaction to any comment.
Amorim had already expressed disappointment at the government’s delay in providing all the election results. “The Venezuelan government must prove that Maduro won,” he said, which amounts to claiming that so far it has not done so.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo said on Monday – with the desire to minimize the asylum granted to González – that “the happiest is Maduro.” This is curious, since Isabel Díaz Ayuso asked a week ago for the opposition candidate to be granted protection. “Spain should open the doors of the embassy today to protect this man, because they are going to kill him or arrest him and they will not release him,” he said. It is very possible that Ayuso did not really realize that entering the embassy could only be the prologue to the granting of asylum.
By this time, González had already been hiding for a long time in the Dutch embassy and was about to go to the Spanish legation as a preliminary step to leaving the country.
The right wing argues that the government should recognize González as president-elect. This is the same approach that Spain and the European Union took with Juan Guaidó, and we have already seen that it had no political relevance on the ground. European governments kept their embassies open in Caracas because they could not ignore the reality of those who governed the country.
On Tuesday, the PP will present to Congress an illegal proposal with nine points, among which is to demand that the government recognize Edmundo González as the winner of the July elections. To get the PSOE to vote against it, the explanatory statement includes harsh criticism of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for his mediation work in Venezuela.
What the PP did not know when it wrote that PNL was that González was going to end up in Spain. Nor was I going to publish a statement thanking Spain, “whose government I deeply appreciate for having welcomed and protected me at this time.” The PSOE will be responsible for reminding us of this in plenary session.
It is already too late to change the PP’s script. Even if I had more time, I wouldn’t do it either. He will continue to blame Sánchez and Albares for being Maduro’s best allies, the only ones allies Venezuelan voters who ultimately did not recognize their victory. It is unlikely that the latter will make the right think about whether its strategy is really coherent.
