The dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro is upset with the socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former president of the Spanish government (2004-2011), for his silence on the presidential election held in Venezuela on July 28.
Faced with international accusations of fraud in the official result, which proclaimed Maduro the winner, the Chavista regime has been complaining that the former leftist leader, who acted as an observer in the election, has not yet spoken out to ratify the “fairness” of the process, as he did in previous elections in Venezuela.
The information was published earlier this week by the newspaper El Debate, which consulted sources from the Venezuelan dictatorship. According to the newspaper, after the election, Zapatero met with leaders of the Chavista regime, who asked him for some gesture or statement of support for the electoral fraud.
According to El Debate, this time Zapatero refused, “arguing to his interlocutors that he was not willing to compromise his democratic prestige.” “The Venezuelan dictatorship interpreted this silence as a gesture of ingratitude, a betrayal, and the anger against the Spanish politician is enormous,” the newspaper added.
Zapatero has not yet made any official statement about the July election. According to the EFE news agency, on Thursday, the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee agreed to invite Zapatero to appear at a hearing on the 30th to talk about the election in Venezuela.
In August, the Spanish conservative trade union Manos Limpas filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Zapatero, accusing him of crimes against humanity due to his relationship with Maduro.
The communication sent to the ICC cites Maduro’s repression against protesters and opposition members who contest the fraud in the July presidential election and argues that the former Spanish socialist president, “identified as an ally of the regime, was accused of pressuring the opposition and acting in favor of Maduro on the international scene”.
“Rodríguez Zapatero, despite international reports on the crisis in Venezuela, was accused of receiving benefits from the regime, such as the exploitation of a gold mine and oil contracts, which generated controversy and public denunciations, even within his own party in Spain, [conduta] which contrasts with the critical stance of other socialist leaders, such as former president Felipe González [1982-1996]”, said Clean Hands.
The gold mine mentioned by Clean Hands was reported by the former head of Military Intelligence of the Venezuelan dictatorship Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, in a complaint to the Spanish courts in October 2021. At the time, Zapatero said the accusation was “surrealistic”.
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