Spain condemns the arrest of María Corina Machado in Caracas on the eve of the investiture

Eduardo González The Spanish Government has condemned the arrest of María Corina Machado, which took place this Thursday after giving a speech in the streets of Caracas on the eve of the investiture ceremony of the president of Venezuela and waiting to find out if the opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia finally comes to the country to take office despite threats from the regime of Nicolás Maduro. Meanwhile, thousands of people demonstrated this Thursday in Madrid, Barcelona and other parts of Spain, with the broad support of the PP and Vox, to show their support for the Venezuelan opposition and express their rejection of Maduro. María Corina Machado was arrested this Thursday by security forces in Caracas, shortly after giving a speech in the streets of Caracas, as her party denounced through social networks. “María Corina was violently intercepted as she left the rally in Chacao. We hope to confirm her situation in a few minutes. Regime personnel fired at the motorcycles that were transporting her,” her supporters said. “As president-elect, I demand the immediate release of María Corina Machado,” Edmundo González Urrutia said on social media. “To the security forces that kidnapped her, I say: don’t play with fire,” he added. Machado was later released. “Very serious! The fact that María Corina is free does not minimize the fact of what happened, she was kidnapped in conditions of violence,” González wrote. “Following the information of the arrest of María Corina Machado, we express our total condemnation and concern,” the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The condemnation extends to “the arrest of Rafael Tudares Tudares (son-in-law of Edmundo González Urrutia), Carlos Correa and Enrique Márquez and the rest of the political prisoners,” the text continues. “The physical integrity and freedom of expression and demonstration of all, especially that of the opposition political leaders, must be protected and safeguarded,” it concludes. “As president-elect, I demand the immediate release of María Corina Machado,” Edmundo González Urrutia said on social media. “To the security forces that kidnapped her, I say: don’t play with fire,” he added. Meanwhile, thousands of people demonstrated on Thursday in various parts of Spain to show their support for the Venezuelan opposition and express their rejection of President Nicolás Maduro. Thousands of people gathered in Madrid's Puerta del Sol, chanting slogans such as "Maduro out, Edmundo president", "Out with the dictator", "No to fraud", "What do we want? Freedom", "Repressive government, it falsified the vote", "Rotten Maduro, the murderers with you" or "You see it, you feel it, Edmundo president". In addition, around 4,000 people gathered in Barcelona's Plaza Sant Jaume for the same reason. Similar gatherings have also been held in Caracas and other world capitals, such as New York, Buenos Aires or Brussels. The Madrid gathering was called under the slogan 'We are all Venezuela. Glory to the brave people' and has had the broad support of PP and Vox. Among the attendees, the leaders of the two formations stood out, Alberto Núñez Feijóo (who encouraged participation in the demonstration "for freedom and against tyranny in Venezuela" throughout the week) and Santiago Abascal, and the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Edmundo González and the investiture On the other hand, the next step of the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia is still awaited, who arrived in the Dominican Republic on Thursday, the last stop on an American tour to gather international support and which could conclude with his entry into Venezuela. González Urrutia himself has assured that his intention is to enter Caracas to assume the Presidency and the Minister of the Interior of Venezuela, Diosdado Cabello, has warned that, "as soon as he puts a finger in Venezuela, he will be arrested." The truth is that the growing repression in Venezuela, the disappearance of González's relatives (including his son-in-law) and the lack of a clear logistical strategy for his return have raised serious doubts that the opposition candidate can keep his word. Spanish government sources quoted by the newspaper 'Vozpópuli' have admitted that there are no signs that González "is preparing a trip to Caracas on the 10th" and assured that the opposition leader has not requested any logistical support from Spain, as he did last September, when a Spanish Air Force plane took him from Caracas to Madrid so that he could request political asylum in Spain. The Spanish government has decided not to send any kind of representation to the investiture of Nicolás Maduro as president of Venezuela, which will take place this coming Friday in Caracas, according to sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this week. With this decision, Spain joins the agreement reached unofficially by the 27 EU States so that none of them will be present at the event, considering that democratic legitimacy cannot be given to Maduro's victory in the presidential elections of July 28, taking into account that no verifiable results have been presented through the delivery of the official minutes and that the observation missions sent by the Carter Foundation and the United Nations (both at the invitation of the Venezuelan regime) do not allow the current president's victory to be ratified. Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner in the presidential elections of July 28 in Venezuela against the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia amid alleged irregularities. The electoral minutes published by the opposition give González Urrutia the victory in the elections, but the National Electoral Council (CNE) officially proclaimed Maduro's victory. The two chambers of the Spanish Parliament, the Congress and the Senate, approved, on the initiative of the PP and with the vote against the PSOE, two non-legislative proposals in which the Government was urged to recognise González Urrutia as “president-elect” of Venezuela. To date, the Spanish Government has insisted on demanding the publication of the minutes as a condition for recognising the election results and has chosen (like most of the 27 EU States and the Ibero-American community) not to recognise González as “president-elect” for the time being. On 8 September, Edmundo González Urrutia fled his country after an arrest warrant was issued against him and was flown from Caracas by a Spanish Air Force plane to Madrid, where he requested political asylum, which was granted in mid-December. Support for Gonzalez and Maduro Within Latin America, Edmundo Gonzalez has the explicit support of Argentina, Peru (the first country in the world to recognize him as “president-elect”), Uruguay, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Panama. On the other hand, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia have publicly supported Maduro, as has the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro. The leftist governments of Colombia, Chile, Brazil and Mexico have not recognized the victory of either Maduro or Gonzalez and have demanded impartial verification of the results. Colombian President Gustavo Petro has warned that his country will not recognize “an election that was not free” and President Luiz Inázio Lula da Silva will not attend the inauguration. Chilean President Gabriel Boric this week described the CNE verdict granting victory to Maduro as “fraud” and has withdrawn his diplomatic mission from Caracas. For its part, the European Union has not recognised Maduro's victory either and last December agreed in Brussels that the ambassadors of the member countries would not attend the ceremony on 10 January. On 17 December, the European Parliament awarded Edmundo González the Sakharov Prize for freedom of conscience and two months earlier recognised him as the "legitimate president of Venezuela" on the initiative of conservative parliamentarians. Specifically, the Popular Party in the European Parliament demanded this Thursday from Brussels that the Member States of the European Union and the European Commission follow the steps of the European Parliament and use all the tools at their disposal to support the democratic transition in Venezuela. "From the heart of Europe we want to unwaveringly support the people of Venezuela, Edmundo González and María Corina Machado, who won at the democratic polls last July," declared the PP spokesperson in the European Parliament, Dolors Montserrat, at a rally in front of the headquarters of the European Parliament in favour of González, according to the Europa Press agency. For his part, former Prime Minister Felipe González said on Thursday that he finds it difficult to explain why the head of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, does not recognise Edmundo González Urrutia as president-elect. “The Spanish Government knows that Edmundo González has won, it knows it, just as I do, it knows the minutes, it knows the result. Why doesn't it do it? I don't know, it's hard for me to explain it,” he said in an interview on NTN 24, reported by Europa Press.

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