José Manuel Albares insisted that Spain will not recognize Nicolás Maduro’s victory until the disaggregated results are published. Nor will it do so with Edmundo González Urrutia because, he says, it would be the same mistake as in 2019 when Juan Guaidó was recognized.
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares insisted on Monday, August 26, that his country will not recognize the results of the July 28 elections – in which the Supreme Court of Justice recently ratified the victory of President Nicolás Maduro – and warned that he cannot say that opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia won the process because he needs to see the records and have them verified by international observers to make a statement.
“Spain has had a very clear position since July 29: we will not recognize any election result if the minutes of all the tables are not displayed and verified. This is how all democracies in the world work,” Albares said in an interview with the newspaper SER chainwhere he said that if Madrid recognized González Urrutia as the winner, it would make a mistake like in 2019 when Juan Guaidó was recognized as interim president, which “did not advance the democratic will.”
“Therefore, we have to be very responsible in what we do. And what we have to think about is that it is not about making forceful statements, but about effective statements, effective movements, and of course, we are not going to recognize an election result that is not verified,” he said.
In his opinion, his country and Venezuela “are brothers” and that therefore he has an important role to play in order to promote a new dialogue between the Maduro administration and the Unitary Platform, while he defended the management carried out by former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero who “receives the gratitude of both the opposition and the government of Venezuela for the work he does.”
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Regarding the possibility of sanctions against the Maduro administration, José Manuel Albares said that the Spanish Government will consider any measure that could help the democratic will of Venezuelans triumph.
“I am not ruling out anything at all, but what we do want is to not move away from our objective and our objective is that the solution be a peaceful and negotiated solution between Venezuelans and not a violent solution,” Albares added.
At the beginning of Augustthe Spanish foreign minister agreed with his Mexican counterpart, Alicia Bárcena, on the need for the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) to publish the minutes broken down by tables and voting centers of the elections held on July 28, which, according to the bulletin of the state agency, the winner was President Nicolás Maduro.
Albares, on his social media, explained that both agree that verification of these records is necessary “to respect the will of the Venezuelan people.”
He stressed that Spain is working with countries in the region to guarantee human rights and prevent violence in Venezuela.
With additional information from EFE
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