The Diplomat People's Party (PP) is calling on the Spanish Government to make a "more forceful" statement and to lead the European Union in recognising the victory in the elections held in Venezuela by the opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia. The PP is focusing its attention on the appearance of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, before the corresponding Senate committee, to discuss the results of the elections that took place on 28 July, and in which President Nicolás Maduro declared himself the winner. Yesterday, in an interview on the COPE channel, the president of the PP; Alberto Núñez Feijóo, insisted that in these elections "the opposition" won and that therefore "Mr Maduro has lost" so, in his opinion, "a transition period must begin". Feijóo also stressed that the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, is a "fraud, he is repressive" and that "there are too many innocent victims" of that government. The leader of the PP affirmed that Spain must lead a plan in the European Union to recognize the results released by the opposition, which point to a victory for González ahead of Maduro, and criticized the fact that the country "follows the instructions" of the former socialist president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whom he referred to as "a friend and intermediary of the Maduro regime."Thus, he regretted that Spain is "silent" and does not have a plan to resolve the Venezuelan crisis. The governments of several Ibero-American countries, including some where left-wing parties are in charge, such as Brazil, Chile or Colombia, have asked the Venezuelan government to make the electoral records public in order to recognize the results. The Spanish Executive has also done so on repeated occasions and, foreseeably, Minister Albares will maintain this position again in his appearance today in the Senate. On July 31, Albares asked to appear before the Senate's Ibero-American Affairs Committee on August 13 to report on the Government's position on the electoral process in Venezuela. The PP, however, thanks to its absolute majority in the Upper House, forced the appearance to take place before the Foreign Affairs Committee. In any case, the PP's Deputy Secretary for Territorial Organization, Carmen Fúnez, asked reporters yesterday that Albares go further and recognize the opposition's victory. "The first thing we expect is that he recognizes the victory of Edmundo González, of María Corina Machado, which was what the majority of Venezuelans voted for, as we know from the minutes that have been arriving," she said. Furthermore, Fúnez announced that her group will ask Albares for explanations about Zapatero, asking him if the former president of the Government is still in Venezuela during these weeks and to clarify what report he has issued as an electoral observer in Venezuela. The PP leader recalled that "Zapatero remained silent" when several parliamentarians from that party who intended to be present at the elections as observers, invited by the opposition candidacy, were expelled from Venezuela. The PP asked the Government of Pedro Sánchez to call the Spanish ambassador in Venezuela for consultations to detail the steps he took in relation to that trip.
