The Diplomat Hours before the decision adopted yesterday by the Twenty-Seven was known, the opposition leader in Venezuela, María Corina Machado, had asked Spain to lead the process of recognising Edmundo González Urrutia's victory in the European Union. María Corina Machado expressed her gratitude to Pedro Sánchez's Government for its “unequivocal” position in not recognising Maduro's victory. The opposition leader also said that she would “love” to speak with King Felipe VI, a “figure of enormous respect” throughout Latin America. Machado expressed her conviction that the presence of the Spanish monarch at the investiture of the Dominican president “had a very positive effect” in the fact that more than twenty countries signed a joint statement on Venezuela, something that she and González Urrutia had already conveyed to him in a recent letter to Zarzuela. In a telematic press conference, Machado agreed with Albares that at this point, continuing to wait for the National Electoral Council (CNE) to publish the official minutes is a “closed road”, something that the minister had commented on yesterday morning before the start of the CAE. The opponent of the Bolivarian regime considered that it would be “very interesting” if the EU as a block or some of its member states could get involved in this hypothetical process of dialogue and asked those governments with the capacity to dialogue with Maduro “to make him understand”, without mentioning any country in particular. In any case, she insisted that the international community must maintain “pressure” on the regime to move towards dialogue and achieve a “peaceful transition,” even though the government has not given any “signal” that invites optimism. Machado explained that “guarantees would be given to all parties,” although she did not want to detail them – “everything will depend on the moment and the terms,” she said. Machado assumed that foreign governments are not going to “turn the page” on this occasion in relation to the political and social crisis that has opened in Venezuela, just as they have not turned the page in the case of the conflict that opened in Ukraine after the Russian invasion. “We are turning the cause for the freedom of Venezuela into a world cause for the first time,” she said, satisfied by the large turnout at marches such as the one called for Wednesday in Caracas, which she herself attended, after a period away from public events. The opposition leader expressed her willingness to appear before legislative bodies in other countries. “I wish I could speak in the Spanish Parliament, in the European Parliament,” she said when asked about this possibility.
