At one point during the press conference this Tuesday in Strasbourg (France), Edmundo González took an elongated sheet of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it and proclaimed that they were electoral records like that, which the opposition had been compiling ” like little ants”, which demonstrate that he, and not Nicolás Maduro, is the legitimate president of Venezuela. At his side, the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, has taken one end of the paper and observed it carefully. She has referred at all times to the Venezuelan diplomat, who received the Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament along with María Corina Machado, as “elected president.” This was determined by the Parliament that she represents in a resolution last September. The same one that urges the 27 European countries, including Spain, to proclaim Edmundo González as the legitimate president of Venezuela. Almost no one except the United States has done it yet.
Everyone is waiting for what happens next January 10, when the investiture ceremony of the next president of Venezuela must be held. Nicolás Maduro is already preparing to be crowned president again, despite the fact that a good part of Western countries consider that the elections were won by the opposition. Edmundo González has also promised to come to the country from his exile in Spain to be inaugurated. And asks for international recognition.
“This is what Nicolás Maduro cannot show,” González said while holding up the minutes. The opposition has collected about nine out of ten of those issuedand show that they have obtained a 67% of the votes. “These minutes clearly demonstrate that Nicolás Maduro was defeated.”
No public plan to seize power from Maduro
González and María Corina Machado, the leader of the opposition movement Democratic Unitary Platform, received the Sakharov Prize for freedom of conscience this Tuesday at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. An award created in 1998 and that is resolved by voting after the proposals of candidates. It was already given to the Venezuelan opposition in 2017. This year it was presented again by two MEPs, from the European PP and the far-right conservative group ECR.
The almost entire Hemicycle has stood up toapplaud these two Venezuelan opponents. Machado has intervened by videoconference, because she is hiding from the regime authorities, who intend to arrest her. They have also promised to do so with González if he sets foot in the country. He would be violating the agreement that he had to sign by force in the Spanish embassy in Caracas to be able to leave the country and not be detained.
The Venezuelan opposition faces a huge challenge. Seize power from Chavismo after 25 years of absolute control of the judicial and economic power and that, at least for the moment, has the support of the high levels of the Army.
Neither María Corina Machado nor Edmundo González have gone into details about whether they have a concrete plan to remove power from Maduro, when asked by EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA at a press conference. She has insisted that the Maduro regime is at its worst, that there are cracks and that international pressure helps.
“For many years we have heard that it is impossible to confront tyranny that she has no scruples, that she is willing to do anything,” stated the Venezuelan politician. She recalled that they were told that it would be impossible to form a unitary movement, and they succeeded; that they were not going to get a candidate after the judges were disqualified. of Machado, and they achieved it too; and that, finally, they won the elections. “Now they tell us that it will be impossible to claim this victory. “We are advancing every day, Maduro is absolutely isolated, increasingly fragile, every day closer to requesting a change.”
