Venezuela’s opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez met with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday, four days after fleeing to the European country in a negotiated deal with Nicolas Maduro’s government.
Mr Gonzalez’s flight to exile — after weeks of seeking refuge in the embassies of the Netherlands and Spain in Caracas — had dealt a major blow to millions who placed their hopes in his opposition campaign.
His supporters in Venezuela and beyond, along with the United States government, consider him the legitimate winner of the July 28 presidential election.
Mr Sanchez, who was on a trip to China when Mr Gonzalez arrived, posted a video of their meeting on the social media platform X. The two are seen strolling together in the Moncloa Palace gardens in Madrid.
Spain has welcomed Mr Gonzalez as a sign of its “humanitarian commitment and solidarity with Venezuelans”, Mr Sanchez said in his post.
On Wednesday, the Spanish Parliament approved a proposal from the conservative Popular Party urging Mr Sanchez’s left-wing coalition government to recognise the opposition leader as the elected president of Venezuela. The motion is non-binding.
Spain’s government supports the European Union position of demanding that Mr Maduro make public the raw polling results before the bloc recognises a winner.
The European Parliament will debate the outcome of the Venezuelan elections on Tuesday in Strasbourg, France.
Mr Gonzalez’s arrival has further strained relations between Madrid and Caracas. On Wednesday, Jorge Rodriguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, asked for “the immediate rupture of all diplomatic relations, of all commercial relations”.
“Let all the representatives of the Spanish government delegation leave, and let us bring our own,” Mr Rodriguez said in the Assembly and also called for “the immediate closure of all commercial activities of Spanish companies”.
Mr Gonzalez, who was Venezuela’s former ambassador in Argentina during the presidency of late Hugo Chavez, landed Sunday at a military airport near Madrid. He travelled aboard a Spanish military plane.
Following the election, Mr Gonzalez and the Venezuelan opposition’s de facto leader, Maria Corina Machado, went into hiding as security forces rounded up more than 2,000 people — many of them young Venezuelans — who spontaneously took to the streets to protest over Mr Maduro’s alleged theft of the election.
With his flight into exile, Mr Gonzalez joined the swelling ranks of opposition stalwarts who once fought Mr Maduro before seeking asylum abroad in the face of a brutal crackdown.
In Spain, he joins at least four former presidential hopefuls who were imprisoned or faced arrest for defying Mr Maduro’s rule.
