Of course, there has been a change. Despite what the Prime Minister and the new Foreign Minister have been trying to clarify, the discourse of this Government has not been the same for several weeks now regarding the crisis in Venezuela.
Without the ferocity with which he usually defends the president, Gustavo Adrianzén is now lukewarm when it comes to calling Nicolás Maduro’s regime a dictatorship or recognizing Edmundo González as the winner of the elections, just as the outgoing foreign minister Javier González-Olaechea did a little over a month ago, at the OAS and before the entire world, stating our country’s position on the Chavista fraud.
The Prime Minister has now dared to deny this, pointing out that there was never an official statement from the Presidency recognising the opposition candidate as the winner of the elections.
“Edmundo González cannot be the president-elect. We have not received any communication from the Peruvian State recognizing that position. We have asked for a recount to be done, because we understand that it has to be within the framework of the electoral process where these records have to be reviewed,” said yesterday the head of the PCM, who even so dares to affirm that no change has been made on this issue since what was said by Elmer Schialer, who on the day of his inauguration declared: “We are in favor of Venezuela’s problems being resolved by Venezuelans.”
On July 30, two days after the elections in Venezuela, González-Olaechea emphasized that Peru considered the opposition candidate to be the president-elect. After these words and his brave speech at the OAS against fraud and in favor of González, the Executive never disavowed what was said by his then foreign minister. Yesterday, however, with his minister out of the cabinet, Adrianzén had no qualms about discrediting him, of course, without mentioning his name.
“The Peruvian government’s position is expressed (only) in the press releases and has to do with the need to display the electoral records so that a recount can take place with international observers,” said the prime minister.
There is no change of position, says Adrianzén, who yesterday, so that there is no doubt that a change has been made apparently to satisfy someone, did not dare to describe the Maduro regime as a dictatorship.
“If what we were looking for right now was a qualifier for the Maduro regime, whether it is a dictatorship or not, it would be easier to say it in those terms,” he said.
THE SCHIALER ERA
Meanwhile, Schialer was presented yesterday as foreign minister at the Torre Tagle Palace. In his speech he said that in Venezuela there is a flagrant lack of respect for democratic rules, that the government does not recognize the results, that they condemn arbitrary arrests and that “there is no change of direction.” Nothing from González, nothing from Maduro. The outgoing González-Olaechea attended the ceremony.
Adrianzén read almost exactly the same script hours later in Congress. The change of direction is beginning to take place in the Executive. What once was, will no longer be.
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