Eduardo González
A parliamentary question about the exclusion of the opposition candidate in Venezuela, María Corina Machado, yesterday became a harsh exchange of disqualifications between the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and a PP senator, in which both openly accused each other of “lying”.
During his speech, Senator Íñigo Fernández García, of the PP, recalled that, after the decision of the Electoral Court to annul her candidacy for the presidential elections on July 28, Corina Machado sent “letters to 18 governments around the world asking that they guarantee free elections in Venezuela.”
“Among the governments receiving these letters is that of Spain, despite the lukewarm position of Minister Albares who, precisely at the moment in which the Venezuelan Electoral Court annulled the candidacy of the opposition leader, came out to ask that made the sanctions on the Venezuelan regime more flexible, a very lukewarm position and a very unfortunate intervention,” he continued.
“These days, the opposition, aware that the regime is not going to allow free elections to be held, has admitted that Corina Machado is not the candidate and has proposed another name, but the conditions of deprivation of liberty and guarantee of free and democratic conditions subsist,” added the senator. “They have sent you that letter. Is the Spanish minister going to do something to promote or be interested in the defense of free elections in Venezuela, or is it going to be business as usual, Mr. Albares?”, he asked.
Albares began his response forcefully: “Another Tuesday, another lie from the People’s Party in this Chamber.” “The position of the Government of Spain regarding the elections in Venezuela is very clear and public: we want free, competitive, transparent elections, in which whoever wants to participate, including Corina Machado, can participate,” said the minister. “I have said that in the Foreign Affairs Commission of Congress, in the Foreign Affairs Council of Brussels and before the public media; Everyone knows it, even you know it, but this ruins your lie, of course,” he concluded.
In his counter-reply, the PP senator took out a copy of a newspaper from which he read a headline: “Albares asks to review the sanctions against Venezuela despite the disqualification of the opposition leader.” “Another Tuesday, another lie from the minister,” Fernández continued, paraphrasing Albares. “If you were unfortunate in asking for sanctions to be lifted against Venezuela just after the opposition leader’s candidacy was annulled, you will know,” but “you did it, don’t come and say that the rest of us are lying because we are telling the truth”, he stated. In the opinion of the PP senator, the whole problem lies in the fact that “Spain does not have a foreign policy, Spain has a minister without personality (a “simple minister”, he stated on two occasions) and is tied hand and foot in Venezuela.”
“Lying in the first question is serious, but continuing to lie after what I have said is very serious, but I see that you are from the PP,” Albares responded in his second turn of reply. “The position of the Government of Spain has been very clear: the sanctions, because there is an agreement for this that includes Spain, are maintained; We are in favor of the deployment of an electoral observation mission, we are in favor of anyone who wants to run in the elections in Venezuela to do so,” he assured. “I myself have spoken with the Venezuelan foreign minister in favor of the Spanish-Venezuelan Rocío San Miguel, and it is public; and I have met with both the Government and the opposition, with the opposition many times to support them, precisely, in this demand,” the minister continued.
“I know that you do not care about Venezuela, nor the elections in Venezuela, nor the Venezuelans,” because, “if you cared about the Venezuelans, you would have given some of the preferential statutes that the Government of Spain, the Government of Pedro Sánchez, to 120,000 Venezuelans; the PP Government, 28, a two and an eight. And among those 120,000 (are) Leopoldo López and his family,” Albares stated.
