The Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López expressed this Wednesday his desire regarding the role that former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero may be playing in the outcome of the recount of the Venezuelan elections, which he has placed in efforts to convince Nicolás Maduro to “make the right decision to leave power.”
“There are those who say that his silence is because he is making efforts so that the Puebla group does not recognize the results of the people and Edmundo González,” he pointed out as the first hypothesis of the lack of a statement by the former Spanish president on the electoral result in Venezuela.
He then raises the other scenario, according to which “there are those who say the opposite: that he is making efforts so that Nicolás Maduro understands the reality he faces and hands over power,” a reflection from which he has inferred his hope that “it is the second, I hope it is the second, because the first is unforgivable.”
ZAPATERO CAN TIP THE SCALES
In an interview with Canal Sur Radio, followed by Europa Press, he pointed out the figure of Zapatero as a determining factor in tipping the scales of the result in one direction or another due to a trajectory characterized by the fact that “he was in Venezuela during the electoral process, he has been in Venezuela many times.”
Regarding Spain’s responsibility in the future of his country, he considered that “it is called to play a very important role” because he stated that “Spain is the lens through which the rest of Europe interprets and often takes a position with respect to Venezuela,” to then point out that “I expect Spain to be clearly on the side of the popular will of the Venezuelans.”
“The process of transition to democracy in Venezuela has already begun,” said Leopoldo López, convinced that “we are seeing the beginning of the end of the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and of course we expect an active, proactive role on the part of Spain, its government and also the Spanish people.”
Leopoldo López has brandished “the deep and serene conviction that we are at the beginning of the end of the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro,” while urging the Venezuelan people to “continue to resist.”
“OVERWHELMING” MAJORITY OF THE OPPOSITION
He has maintained that, compared to other elections, “this election is different from the others” because he argues that “the majority that voted for democracy was overwhelming” to point out here that the votes registered in Venezuela reached 70%, a percentage to which he has added “the Venezuelans who are abroad, who are 8 million, of which more than 5 could have voted and could not due to restrictions imposed by Maduro, the proportion would have been 85%.”
The opposition leader points out that “it was won in all the states of Venezuela, in all the municipalities, in all the towns,” a victory that has been extended to “all the voting centers where the military units are located,” which is why he has maintained that “throughout Venezuela, in all the neighborhoods, in the ministries that Maduro controls, in the urbanizations controlled by Maduro, even in the Miraflores Palace where Maduro lives, there is clarity, conviction, certainty that there was a victory for democracy in favor of Edmundo González and a defeat for Nicolás Maduro.”
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY AND THE SKEPTICAL VIEW OF THE EU
For this “heroic” resistance of the Venezuelans, he has called for “the accompaniment of the international community”, specifying here that this group is not “a homogeneous entity” and that this umbrella also includes “autocratic countries, which do not have free elections, which violate human rights, which do not have the rule of law and are the countries that have supported Maduro”, in reference to “China, Russia, Turkey, Cuba, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, Uganda, North Korea, Eritrea, Belarus and many others”.
Behind these countries he has placed another block that “has already recognized the results clearly expressed by the Venezuelans and recognizes Edmundo González as president-elect”, among which he includes “Uruguay, Argentina, Peru, Costa Rica, Ecuador, the United States”.
From there, he makes a point of departure from the European Union’s view of Venezuela, because “although they question the results presented by the Maduro dictatorship, they still insist that the minutes and the evidence be presented by the dictatorship in order to issue an opinion.”
“It is a matter of time before countries, including Spain, clearly determine that the victory on July 28 was Edmundo González’s and that it requires a transition process for Maduro to hand over power.”
Regarding the divergences in the view of Venezuela made from an ideological perspective, López states that “this is not an issue that has to do with the left or the right in democratic governments” to then claim that “it has to do with democracy or autocracy, with freedom or tyranny.”
“I hope that any government, any political organization that assumes itself as democratic is on the right side, which is on the side of the people, on the side of the Venezuelans who went out to vote massively in favor of change on July 28.”
In his portrait of Venezuela he has placed this country as “a dictatorship that persecutes, that imprisons, that murders, that makes people disappear, that has stolen an election, that has destroyed our country, a dictatorship that boasts of having thousands of people detained and of having started a ruthless persecution against any dissident voice.”
