The main opposition candidate in the last presidential elections in Venezuela, Edmundo González, sees himself returning to Caracas to take office as future head of state and, although he avoids entering into “hypotheses” about when or how this return can be accomplished, he does make it clear that at no time is he considering being invested in exile.
“Absolutely not,” he says in an interview with Europa Press in which he stresses that he does not give up on returning to the country he left at the beginning of September to request asylum in Spain. The day marked in red on the calendar is January 10th, the date on which President Nicolás Maduro’s mandate theoretically expires and the winner of the July 28th elections must take office.
Chavismo declared Maduro the winner, ignoring the requests of the internal opposition and most of the international community to present the minutes (“actas”, official records) that prove this supposed triumph. “I was the winner with more than seven million votes and we hope that the popular will is respected,” claims González, who believes that his advantage over Maduro would have been “much higher” if all the expatriated Venezuelans had been able to participate.
González, who took over the candidacy after the disqualification of the winner of the primaries, María Corina Machado, and her theoretical initial substitute, Corina Yoris, continues to advocate from Spain for “recovering democracy and institutionality” in Venezuela, which in his opinion means that it is not Maduro who will bear the presidential sash on January 10th.
He wants to be the one to assume the “constitutional mandate” and does not hide his desire to return, although he avoids speculating about possible offers of collaboration from third countries to return and does not clarify how he would be able to do so – “we do not know by what means I will arrive,” he says ironically. “I would not like to consider anticipated hypothetical scenarios,” he says, when talking for example about shadow governments or replicating some ideas from the Juan Guaidó era.
Read more in Europa Press (in Spanish)