The PNV will vote with the PP so that Congress urges the Government to recognize Edmundo González as president of Venezuela

The PNV will join the right and vote on Tuesday in favour of an initiative promoted by the PP for Congress to recognise Edmundo González as the elected president of Venezuela. “We have no time for nuances. We are clear that we will always be against repression, dictatorship and obscurantism. Against Maduro. We cannot give him an inch,” said the spokesman for the Basque nationalists, Aitor Esteban, this Tuesday at a press conference.

The initiative, which is being debated this afternoon, was promoted by the PP before the Government granted asylum to the Venezuelan opposition leader, who arrived in Spain this Sunday. The text urges the Executive to recognise González Urrutia as the “legitimate winner of the presidential elections” on 28 July. With the support of the PNV, UPN, Vox, PP and also Coalición Canaria, the proposal will be approved with 177 votes when it is voted on Wednesday in the Lower House.

“This recognition is based on the repeated refusal of the Venezuelan electoral authorities to publish the results in a timely manner, the publication by the opposition of 83.5% of the verifiable records that demonstrate a categorical electoral result, and the official pronouncements of international institutions such as the Carter Center, the United Nations, and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security,” says the non-legislative proposal.

The initiative is part of the PP’s strategy to use the current situation in Venezuela to attack the government. The party has been asking for weeks that the Executive recognise the opposition as the winner of the elections on 28 July. This Sunday, after it became known that Spain had granted asylum to González Urrutia, the PP’s deputy secretary for Institutional Affairs, Esteban González Pons, criticised the humanitarian measure. “It is not doing democracy a favour, but rather removing a problem from the dictatorship,” he said.

“Sanchez and the corrupt officials of Zapatero should be sparing in their self-praise: removing Edmundo Gonzalez without recognizing him as legitimate president is not doing democracy a favor, but removing a problem for the dictatorship. Cuba would do the same if asked,” he posted on the social network X. Vox has expressed itself in similar terms this Tuesday and has considered that the asylum for González Urrutia is a “maneuver disguised as humanitarian aid” to remove the opposition leader “from the place that corresponds to him, that of president-elect.”

Esteban acknowledged on Tuesday that the situation in Venezuela is often used “as a battering ram” in Congress, to “throw darts at each other” and to “fight” between the two major parties, and he also admitted that it is usually the opposition party that leads this strategy. However, he has announced that his party will give the votes for the text to be approved because “no one has any doubts in view of the minutes that have been published of the opposition’s victory.” “Maduro has done nothing to prove the contrary,” he added.

The spokesman for the Basque nationalists has indicated that he will support the entire text, “if everything goes as normal.” “There is always someone who can throw a log into the stream,” he said, warning the PP to stick to what was proposed and not make “crude” speeches or “overstep certain lines,” looking more at internal politics, he said, “than at the restoration of democracy in Venezuela.”

The Government criticizes the PP for its initiative

The government, for its part, criticises the Popular Party for having promoted in Congress an initiative for the recognition of González as the legitimate president of Venezuela. “This proposal has a clear objective: to divide. And it ignores the position of all the countries of the European Union,” said the spokesperson minister, Pilar Alegría.

The minister has insisted that the Government’s position remains to “request all the records, demand transparency.” “What we are doing is betting on democracy moving forward in Venezuela and responding to a request for humanitarian asylum,” she said in reference to the reception of the opposition leader in Spain.

The PSOE has in fact presented an amendment to the PP initiative that, de facto, reverses the original meaning of the text. In the modification proposed by the socialists, the Government is urged to continue working within the European Union to maintain a “common position” and to analyse within that framework whether the recognition of González can contribute to a political solution in Venezuela or not.

They also include in this text a point for Congress to support the granting of asylum to the Venezuelan opposition member “for political and humanitarian reasons” and for “his political rights and freedom of expression to be guaranteed”. Finally, the PSOE adds a point that makes it even more difficult for the PP to end up supporting this new wording: “Recognise all mediation work by President Zapatero to allow the release of political prisoners and to build bridges between the Government and the opposition and urge the Government to facilitate it”.