Pedro Sanchez called this Friday Delcy Rodriguez already Edmundo Gonzalez on the same day. And he immediately shared it publicly, in a joint post on his X account, presenting himself as a kind of mediator between the two, by betting on “a peaceful, dialogued and democratic transition” in Venezuela.
The Spanish president never recognized González as president-electdespite having won the elections of July 28, 2024, as the official records showed.
Now try to get on the Delcy solutionwhile attacking the one who imposed it, Donald Trumpfor its “violation of international law” in the military operation on January 3. Sánchez described the capture of Nicolas Maduro as “a terrible precedent”, on Three Kings Day from Paris.
The political maneuver shows an obvious contradiction, as the stars of the flag of the Caribbean countryseven for the Democrats, eight for the Chavistas: the head of the Spanish Executive tried to become the protagonist of a fait accompli by someone who also publicly denounced only seeks to “appropriate natural resources” from Venezuela.
However, now he boasts of his supposed influence, equating the heir of Chavismo with the legitimate leader of the democratic opposition, in a process that Washington has already defined.
The president in charge herself was in charge of fueling the pantomime, shortly after, in a public statement, in which she reported on conversations with the Brazilian Lula da Silvathe Colombian Gustavo Petroand with Sánchez himself.
When conversing Spanish, he said, “I thanked him for his brave stance of the Government of Spain condemning the aggression against Venezuela and I raised our interest in working together on a broad and beneficial bilateral agenda for both peoples and governments.”
Blackmailed twice
It should be remembered that González Urrutia has been in exile in Madrid since September 2024, when he was welcomed as a political refugee.
His arrival in Spain occurred after being victim of extortion at the Spanish embassy in Caracas. For 48 hours, González endured intimidating pressure inside the ambassador’s own residence, which was supposedly protecting him.
Those responsible for that operation were Delcy Rodríguez herself and her brother Jorge. She is now the acting president from Venezuela. He presides over the Bolivarian National Assembly, the usurping body of the Venezuelan Legislature, after the electoral defeat of Chavismo.
Both of them put pressure, those two days, on González to sign a document, committing to give up politics before letting him leave on a Spanish Air Force plane, bound for Madrid.
And they are both responsible for the illegal detention of his son-in-lawa year ago now, at gunpoint in the streets of Caracas, and in front of his children. This is the second extortion of González Urrutia in the person of Rafael Tudares His whereabouts have been unknown since then.
This operation of supposed mediation places both actors in equivalent positions, when their legitimacy is opposite.
And so, the Spanish Government publicly affirms its support a transition “led by Venezuelans themselves”does not sympathize with Trump’s military operation, which was not unilateral, but supported from within, and which now uses Delcy as a puppet.
Delcy after the operation
Maduro’s capture was carried out with the participation of internal political actors of the regime. And Rodríguez assumed the presidency in charge after the US military operation, placed by Washington in a controlled transition role from the outside.
For this reason, the subsequent announcements of the release of political prisoners, crystallized in the arrival this Friday of the first five Spaniards released from prison, are part of the plan outlined by Marco Rubio two days later, before the US Congress.
Moncloa’s strategy makes criticism of Trump coexist with an attempt to adapt to reality that the American president has created. Sánchez tries to rise, showing the usefulness of his “good offices” and those of the former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
And although the Spanish president now claims that he “never recognized the Maduro regime”, the truth is that he simply did not accept the electoral result as good, although he did accept it de facto. And sources from the Executive confirm that the departure of Edmundo González as the “best way out” to avoid a “civil confrontation”.
But Sánchez’s call to Rodríguez, protagonist with his landing in Madrid six years ago of one of the darkest episodes of his own presidency, recognizes her as a legitimate interlocutor. And it gives him a role as a credible transitional figure in a process in which Spain did not count and that Washington pilots.
This dual position reflects the limitations of the Spanish Government in international politics. This Friday, Jose Manuel Albares He also spoke with Rubio, US Secretary of State, but Spain’s ability to influence is limited to a secondary role in the management of events already accomplished.