Brussels – The president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, assured this Friday that the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, must face justice for the irregularities in the elections and the repression launched against the opposition instead of “illegitimately swearing in” to office.
In a message on social media, the leader of the European Parliament called on the Chavista authorities to “return Venezuela to the people” and argued that “freedom must prevail.”
“Maduro must face justice, not illegitimacy. Venezuela will be free,” she indicated in a statement expressing support for opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was detained this Thursday amid protests on the outskirts of Caracas against Maduro’s swearing-in.
Machado confirmed she was detained by the “repressive forces of the regime” but is now in “a safe place,” in her first words since her campaign team reported her arrest and subsequent release following a demonstration held in Chacao.
Meanwhile, the Spanish Government has decided not to send any representative to the swearing-in of Nicolás Maduro, according to sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union, and Cooperation.
The Spanish Executive has not recognized Maduro’s victory in the presidential elections of last July 28 at any time after the National Electoral Council (CNE) did not make public the vote tallies, and those revealed by the opposition indicate a decisive victory for their candidate, Edmundo González.
Spain has remained attached to the common European position, which does not recognize Maduro as president but has not wanted to recognize Edmundo González as the elected president, as both the Congress of Deputies and the Senate have requested from the Government.
Meanwhile, it has provided political asylum to the veteran diplomat, opposition candidate, given María Machado‘s inability to run, who has been expressing his willingness to be in Venezuela to be sworn in this Friday.
With the absence of a Spanish representative this Friday, which the rest of the EU partners are also expected to follow, the Executive will make its non-recognition of Maduro as president evident, but for now, it will not proceed with the closure of the Embassy in Caracas.
In line with this intention to keep the diplomatic mission open regardless of political circumstances, at the beginning of December, the Council of Ministers of the Spanish Government appointed diplomat Álvaro Albacete as the new ambassador, and he presented his credentials to Maduro himself to be able to act as the representative of Spain’s interests on December 23. (January 8 and 9)
