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Spain takes in Edmundo González at the request of the Venezuelan opposition candidate himself

Pedro Sánchez affirms that Spain ‘will not abandon’ the Venezuelan opposition candidate, whom he defines as ‘a hero’. The PP asks the government to lead the EU in recognising the opposition's victory in Venezuela

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<p>Una partidaria del candidato presidencial opositor Edmundo González Urrutia y la líder opositora María Corina Machado gritan consignas durante una manifestación de protesta frente a la sede de las Naciones Unidas en Caracas el 30 de julio de 2024 - AFP/YURI CORTEZ</p>
A supporter of opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado shout slogans during a protest rally outside the United Nations headquarters in Caracas on July 30, 2024 - AFP/YURI CORTEZ
Eduardo González/The Diplomat
Updated: 08/09/24

Edmundo González took off early this morning from Caracas to Spain in a Spanish Air Force plane, after the government of Pedro Sánchez arranged the diplomatic and material means necessary for his transfer, carried out at the request of the Venezuelan opposition candidate himself, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

‘The Government of Spain reiterates its commitment to the political rights and physical integrity of all Venezuelans, especially political leaders,’ it added. ‘Edmundo González, at his request, is flying to Spain in a Spanish Air Force plane. The Government of Spain is committed to the political rights and physical integrity of all Venezuelans’, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, via the social network X.

Hours earlier, the president of the government and secretary general of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, said that the Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González is ‘a hero’ whom Spain ‘will not abandon’ and defended the role of his party as ‘one of the main bulwarks against the ultra-right-wing internationalism that is sweeping the world’.

During his speech at the PSOE's Federal Committee held yesterday at the party's headquarters in Madrid, Sánchez stressed his party's commitment to multilateral organisations and to ‘international legality’ and democracy. All of this, he added, ‘combating hoaxes, campaigns of interference, protecting the safety and integrity of activists, journalists and political leaders, wherever they are: in Russia, in Palestine or in Venezuela’. 

The judge of the First Special Court of the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice this week ordered the arrest of González Urrutia, at the request of the Prosecutor's Office, for the crimes of ‘usurpation of functions, forgery of public documents, instigation to disobey laws, conspiracy, sabotage and association’ to commit crimes.

The Prosecutor's Office had requested the arrest after the PUD published on the internet alleged electoral records proving the victory of its candidate in the presidential elections. The Platform claims to have 83.5 per cent of the minutes, allegedly obtained through witnesses and polling station members. In response, José Manuel Albares immediately warned against ‘any attempt to curtail the fundamental rights’ of Edmundo González Urrutia.

The National Electoral Commission (CNE) and the Venezuelan Supreme Court have declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner, but the European Union (including Spain), the United States and several Latin American countries have warned that they will not recognise his victory until all the voting records are published.

Precisely, the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies will debate next Wednesday a Proposition of Law (PNL) presented by the PP in which it calls for the recognition of the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia as ‘winner of the presidential elections held on 28 July 2024 in Venezuela’. Specifically, the text, presented on 27 August, urges the government to ‘recognise Edmundo González Urrutia as the legitimate winner of the presidential elections of 28 July 2024 in Venezuela and, therefore, as the elected and legitimate president of Venezuela’.

On 26 August, José Manuel Albares warned that it would not be ‘responsible’, as the PP is demanding, to recognise Edmundo González's victory in the presidential elections without all the polling station reports having been published and verified. ‘We are not going to recognise any election result if the minutes of all the polling stations are not displayed and can be verified by the opposition and independent bodies,’ he told the SER radio station. Likewise, the minister recalled the precedent of Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly, who was recognised as president-in-charge of Venezuela in 2019 and whose recognition ‘did not advance the democratic will’ of Venezuelans. The minister insisted that Spain cannot ‘recognise figures that nobody knows where they come from’, and even more so when ‘what we could call doubts in the first moments begin to be more than doubts’ after the report of the UN panel of experts that observed the elections.

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