Thousands of Venezuelans gathered this Saturday in the center Puerta del Sol in Madridduring a day of mobilization across the world to claim victory from opponent Edmundo González during the July 28 elections in Venezuela and demand his inauguration as president of the country on January 10.
Under the motto ‘Major global demonstration for freedom in Venezuela‘, supporters of González and María Corina Machado, accompanied by opposition leaders from their country such as Antonio Ledezma, former mayor of Caracas, and also Spaniards, including the leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP), Alberto Nuñez Feijóotook to the streets two months after the Venezuelan elections.
“Here we must move from compassionate statements to effective actions,” Ledezma said in press statements before the start of the event, in which he thanked the support received from national parliaments, such as that of Spain, and international organizations like the UN. or the OAS, but he insisted: “It is time to enforce the sovereign willthat a dictatorship makes fun of“.
Ledezma, coordinator of the International Political Council of opposition leader María Corina Machado, said the international community “must be present with energetic actions so that this bad example that (President Nicolas) Maduro represents is not copied by other populist leaders.
He also attended the concentration Edmundo Gonzalezcandidate of the main opposition coalition in Venezuela, the Unitary Democratic Platform (PUD), in the presidential elections of July 28. who they consider to be the winner, based on more than 80% of the minutes collected from witnesses and polling station memberswhich the Venezuelan government does not recognize. González, who arrived in Spain on September 8 to seek asylum, greeted everyone present but was unable to speak because, according to Ledezma, he suffers from hoarseness and it was he who was responsible for reading a message from his part.
He said that on July 28, the people “gave a sovereign mandate in favor of change, for peace, freedom and democracy“, called for unity and trust “in the power of truth, steadfastness and perseverance” and reaffirmed that they had “an unequivocal popular mandate for change” and that they were “very close” to achieving this.
He also participated via the Internet Machadowho said in a moving message: “The end is not just that Maduro leaves power, it will happen, The end is the construction of a Venezuela that will rise“. Representatives of all political parties of the Venezuelan opposition, as well as relatives of political prisoners, were also present at the rally, and there was no shortage of people. the son of María Corina Machado.
Alongside the Madrid demonstration, others took place in dozens of cities across Spain, including Barcelonawhere hundreds of people demanded the recognition of Edmundo González Urrutia as the elected president of the Latin American country and demand action from the International Criminal Court against Nicolas Maduro. “We ask the President (of the Spanish government) Pedro Sánchez to recognize Edmundo González, with the EU and all democratic countries, so that the world joins the Venezuelan cause that wants to put an end to the Maduro dictatorship,” the spokesperson for the organization of the demonstration, Gerali Rodríguez, told EFE. This protest also took place in Cape Town in around 500 cities around the worldas María Corina Machado said in her message, during a global call.
