Edmundo González denies having been coerced by Spanish officials and appreciates the efforts made to get him out of Venezuela

( Spanish) – Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia denied on Thursday that he had been coerced by Spanish officials when he was at the embassy in Caracas, as alleged by the leader of the Spanish opposition Popular Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

“I have not been coerced by the Government of Spain or by the Spanish ambassador in Venezuela, Ramón Santos. The diplomatic efforts undertaken had the sole purpose of facilitating my departure from the country, without exerting any kind of pressure on me,” González Urrutia said in a statement.

The candidate of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) in the elections of July 28 added that the Government of Spain guaranteed his safety during his departure from Venezuela and subsequent arrival in Madrid, where he received political asylum. He assured that these actions were supervised by the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, and that his well-being and freedom of decision were guaranteed at all times.

González Urrutia’s statement does not mention Núñez Feijóo’s accusations, but it was released hours after the PP leader said, during a press conference in Italy, that Albares should resign because —according to him— the foreign minister allowed González Urrutia to be coerced by high-ranking officials of the Venezuelan government.

On Wednesday, González Urrutia said that before leaving Venezuela he met at the Spanish embassy in Caracas with Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and the President of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, who he claimed coerced him into signing a document in which he recognized President Nicolás Maduro as the winner of the elections. For his part, Rodríguez denies that González Urrutia was coerced.

Meanwhile, the Spanish foreign minister thanked González Urrutia on Thursday for the statement in which he exonerated his country’s diplomats from any kind of pressure. “Thank you @EdmundoGU for defending the truth in the face of slander and insults against Spain and its foreign service,” Albares wrote on his X account.