Everyone talks about Venezuela, but what matters to them is Spanish politics

Another day of debate in Congress on Venezuela and once again what mattered to the parliamentary groups was settling scores with their rivals. The right did not care in the least that Pedro Sánchez’s government refused to recognise the official victory of Nicolás Maduro and that it had given refuge in Spain to the opposition candidate, Edmundo González. The PSOE’s partners on the left thought it appropriate to denounce the right’s “double standards”, but they did not dare to make clear their position on the situation created by the Venezuelan elections and the lack of a full scrutiny to justify Maduro’s re-election.

The PNV’s support for the Popular Party’s non-legislative proposal will ensure that at least its first point is approved and that Congress recognises González as the “legitimate winner” of the July 28 elections and therefore as “president-elect”. Each of its nine points will be voted on separately, so it will not be known until Wednesday afternoon how many of them are approved. What is striking is that no parliamentary group spoke in favour of Maduro or recognised the victory that the country’s electoral authorities proclaimed the following day.