PUERTO PADRE, Cuba.- On an executive plane of the Spanish Air Force –and this military transport on an intercontinental flight says a lot about the passenger– this Sunday he arrived in Madrid from Caracas, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutiathe president-elect of Venezuela, according to the minutes of the elections of July 28, electoral certifications made public by the opposition, but which the regime of Nicolás Maduro, stubbornly clinging to power, has refused to show because with them it would expose its defeat.
And it is precisely the publication of these minutesof the votes, elector after elector, one of the various criminal charges brought against, or rather, brought up by the hair by the Maduro prosecutor’s office, trying to put González Urrutia, a 75-year-old man, a former career diplomat, in jail, making him the number one political target of the dictatorship in Venezuela, and making him take refuge incognito and since July 29, as a “guest” in two European embassies in Caracas, in the Netherlands until last week, and in Spain until its departure into exile this Saturday.
By the way, the day before, and already in the process of executing the exile of Edmundo GonzalezSpanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said of Edmundo: “He is a hero whom Spain will not abandon.”
But it turns out that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia Today he is in Spain as a political exile, yes, but as an ordinary Venezuelan citizen, like the Venezuelan diaspora around the world.
And it is useful to ask: Next January 10th Nicolas Maduro will remain as “constitutional president” of Venezuela? And if so: How will the international community proceed in the face of this nonsense of the founding principles of the United Nations…?
The principle of effectiveness
In International Law there is the principle of effectiveness for the recognition of a Government, a precept that is based on the guarantee of a new presidency to exercise power within the limits of the territory of the State, and presupposes the viability of that administration and the support of the population.
And it is known: Edmundo González went from being a retired diplomat to a formal political leader. But no one, in their right mind and in good faith, can doubt that today the natural leader of Venezuela who moved and moves multitudes is María Corina Machado, who, disqualified in a spurious manner by the dictatorship, knew how to rely on others as an intrinsic trait of a person with natural leadership, and thus delegated authority and transferred political capital to González Urrutia. Now it is worth asking:
According to the principle of effectiveness, there is no doubt that Support of the Venezuelan people to a new Government for which he voted overwhelmingly…?
What doubts do the presidents of Spain, the United States, the European Union, Latin America and the entire civilized world, which have not yet recognized the viability of the exercise of the powers of the State by a new Government in Venezuela…?
How can we not recognize Edmundo González as the president elected on July 28 when the electoral records prove it?
President-elect
If the presidents look only at one person and not at the nation that voted at the polls, they are wrong.
The repression for political persecution that constitutes a crime against humanity and an international crime, did not begin on purpose for these elections on July 28when hundreds of paramilitaries and parapolice officers called “collectives” appeared on motorcycles on the streets of Caracas and other cities, intimidating opponents and the general population.
Remember that even before the July 28th Nicolás Maduro himself announced a “bloodbath” if he did not emerge victorious, so it is not strange that the day after the elections in which he knew he had won in the face of those who lack the capacity for self-criticism, González Urrutia sought refuge in a diplomatic legation for his own safety, in the same way that he has now sought asylum in Spain.
To those who have disparaged her actions, I suggest that they put themselves in the place of their peers before criticizing a person over 70 years old who was comfortably enjoying his retirement when Maria Corina went to ask him to take her place on behalf of Venezuela. Then… it is about Venezuela in the person of a man who is a husband, father and grandfather.
In exile
But now Edmundo González Urrutia is another Venezuelan exileAnd this exile is an accusatory finger against Nicolás Maduro and his regime, but also against many who call themselves friends of democracy.
In contrast to this accusatory finger pointing at Maduro, a natural accusation, González Urrutia, who in exile should be doing what he does best and what he is qualified for, which is diplomatic work to bring States closer to his country, destroyed by a dictatorship, is simply at a disadvantage to carry out this work.
Although he traveled to Madrid on a Spanish Air Force executive plane, neither President Sánchez, who elevated him to the status of “hero,” nor Joe Biden, nor Lula da Silva, Petro or López Obrador or so many other presidents, by the grace of the denial of the principle of recognition, ignore the fact that in Madrid there lives in exile not another Venezuelan, but the president-elect of Venezuela. What a pity! (For democracy more than for Edmundo).
