“There is no turning back from ridicule,” says a phrase attributed to the Argentine leader Juan Domingo Perón. In the Kingdom of Spain, they seem determined to fully comply with this sentence, after the position adopted against the legitimate government of Venezuela and its institutions. The reception and treatment as a State personality that they have given to Edmundo González Urrutia is another clear example of the levels of ridicule.
The first to try to take advantage of this situation were the deputies of the Popular Party (PP) and their allies who urged the Spanish government, headed by the socialist Pedro Sánchez, to recognize González Urrutia as the legitimate president of Venezuela.
In the realms of the Spanish right, González Urrutia has become the new “rock star” of Venezuelan migrants in Madrid. In the absence of proposals to confront Pedro Sánchez, the PP has taken the former Venezuelan candidate as the new figure to oppose the government.
The president of the right-wing Popular Party of Spain, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, received on September 17 the former Venezuelan candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, in a new act of provocation to recognize the asylum seeker as the elected president of Venezuela.
Núñez Feijóo not only referred to the former presidential candidate of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) as “the president-elect of Venezuela,” but also received him at the legislative headquarters of Spain and used him as an example of democracy, in an attempt to campaign against the measured stance of the Sánchez government.
Edmundo González’s meeting with Núñez Feijóo comes after the Venezuelan opposition leader met in previous days with former Prime Ministers Felipe González, Mariano Rajoy and José María Aznar, other PP leaders who have worked closely with the Venezuelan.
The deputy spokesperson for the PP in Congress, Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, also defended this Tuesday that the Chamber, as a whole, recognize Edmundo González Urrutia as the winner of the elections and president-elect of Venezuela.
In the proposal by Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, the PP took advantage of its explanatory statement to attack José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and accuse him of being an “accomplice” to the government of Nicolás Maduro, and pointing out that he “lacked commitment to truth and justice”, despite the fact that González Urrutia had not presented any valid proof of his electoral victory.
Álvarez de Toledo has described Edmundo González’s request for asylum (and subsequent departure for Madrid) as an “operation designed by the dictatorship, organised by Zapatero and facilitated by the Spanish Government”, in an attempt to use the Venezuelan politician against the Spanish government.
This Wednesday, the Spanish Congress will vote on the PP’s proposal, which now has a new leadership imported from Venezuelan extremism to confront the local left.
