“The Spanish government is involved in the coup that took place in Venezuela.” This was highlighted by the Deputy Secretary for Institutional Affairs of the PP, Esteban González Pons, to the executive of Pedro Sánchez for his efforts to grant political asylum in Spain to the Venezuelan opponent Edmundo González. In statements to esRadio, the leader of the PP, one of the closest to Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said that “For the departure of the elected president, his coercion and his sending into exile, the Spanish government has been a necessary cooperator.” Edmundo González thanked the government for intervening to obtain his departure from the Latin American country.
In recent hours, the government of Nicolas Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition have exchanged statements on the exile of Edmundo González. The president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, made public a letter signed by González in which he respects the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice of his country to validate Maduro’s victory in the elections of July 28.
The letter was reportedly signed at the Spanish embassy in Caracas as a prerequisite for González being allowed to leave the country, something he himself had requested.
The opposition leader did not deny the veracity of the letter, but assured that he had signed it only under duress and as the only way to leave Venezuela, where the prosecutor’s office had issued an arrest warrant against him. González asked for help from Spain and the intermediation of the former president of the government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, to leave the country.
The Maduro government finally authorized the landing in Venezuela of a Spanish military plane that González boarded to land in Spain, where he was granted asylum while waiting for the institutional conflict that opened after the presidential elections in July to be resolved. Most of the countries around Venezuela, as well as the United States and Spain, have asked Maduro to make the election results public due to doubts about the cleanliness of the process.
After arriving in Madrid, González thanked the Spanish government for its mediation work. “I have decided to leave Venezuela and settle in Spain, whose government I deeply appreciate for welcoming and protecting me at this time. I also thank the Dutch embassy in Venezuela. I have made such a decision thinking about Venezuela and the fact that our destiny as a country cannot, must not be one of conflict of pain and suffering,” he said in an official statement posted on Twitter.
In late August, the prosecution summoned the former diplomat to testify as he was under investigation for conspiracy, usurpation of office and incitement to disobedience. His refusal to appear at the courts during three calls led the prosecution to request an arrest warrant on September 3.
At that time, contacts with senior officials of the Maduro government to facilitate the exile of the opposition candidate had already begun through Zapatero, after the Venezuelan opposition turned to the former Spanish president to avoid a trial against González whose most likely destination was his incarceration.
PP reaction
The PP first reacted with an attack on Edmundo González himself. The most belligerent was Esteban González Pons, who even suggested that the opposition candidate had “sold out” by comparing him to the other leader opposed to Maduro, María Corina Machado: “This is the moment to remember that the candidate of the Venezuelan people is Corina Machado, that if she was not at the head of the candidacy, it is because the regime disqualified her and she continues to the end, without surrendering or giving in to the dictatorship.”
Spain’s main opposition party, led by Pons and Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, has since attacked the government for its alleged collusion with the Maduro government. Despite the severance of diplomatic relations and the withdrawal of Venezuela’s ambassador to Madrid after Congress and the Senate recognized González as Venezuela’s president-elect.
After the new exchange of accusations between the ruling party and the opposition in this Latin American country, the PP has redoubled its attacks against the Sánchez government. In addition to accusing Pons of being a “coup leader”, several leaders have used their social networks to launch messages against the executive.
“The Spanish embassy has been used by the Venezuelan dictatorship as a refuge to coerce, blackmail and pressure the elected president of Venezuela,” wrote parliamentary spokesman Miguel Tellado. “This is extremely serious, even for a government mired in moral destitution like Sánchez’s,” he added.
His counterpart in the Senate, Alicia García, is not far behind: “That Jorge Rodríguez and Delcy Rodríguez went to the Spanish embassy to coerce the legitimate president is a blatant act of submission to Chavismo. Only one is missing: Rodríguez Zapatero. The Spanish government cannot be in cahoots with Chavismo.”
PSOE demands Pons’ dismissal
The PSOE has demanded Pons’ resignation after his accusations against the government. “It is intolerable that the head of international relations of the PP is a ‘thug’ whose only problem is the frustration of not having known that Edmundo González was taking refuge in the Spanish embassy in Venezuela and would be welcome in our country,” the Sánchez party said in a statement. “If this man were to one day lead Spain’s foreign relations, we would find ourselves on the periphery of international politics,” they added. “We doubt that he is aware of what he is saying,” they continued, concluding: “We demand the immediate resignation of Esteban González Pons.”
Corina Machado: “Edmundo didn’t want to leave”
“Everyone knows that the Rodriguez brothers [Delcy y Jorge, principales operadores políticos del presidente de Venezuela] They were in negotiations. The regime wanted him to leave, they forced him; “He didn’t want to leave.” said Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado in an interview with El País.
Referring to the diplomatic work of former Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Machado adds: “It was an operation that also included other actors who pretended to be the opposition. People with good offices who came to offer safe passage, but deep down they were operators of the regime itself. “Everyone knows who I’m talking about.”
González Urrutia contacted the Spanish and Venezuelan governments, through Zapatero, to manage his departure from Venezuela: Spain received this request, which it accepted. And, in parallel, the Maduro government ensured safe passage. In the middle is the letter signed in the Spanish diplomatic offices between the opposition leader, the vice president of Venezuela and the president of the Assembly.
Sources from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirm that “González Urrutia was free to receive and organize meetings with whoever he wanted, the embassy did not intervene in anything.”
