Spain will accept Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate leader of the country if he is elected democratically and provides guarantees to recognize the opposition National Assembly legislature, a senior Spanish lawmaker told Sputnik on Wednesday
NUR-SULTAN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th September, 2019) - Spain will accept Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate leader of the country if he is elected democratically and provides guarantees to recognize the opposition National Assembly legislature, a senior Spanish lawmaker told Sputnik on Wednesday.Spain, along with the majority of other European countries, recognized Juan Guaido, the leader of Venezuela's opposition, as the interim president of the South American country in February following a political crisis that questioned the legitimacy of Maduro's election to the presidency.
"At this moment, the majority of the democratic parties in the world and the United Nations and the Group of Lima, all of us, we have the same opinion that Maduro has to make democratic elections with the guarantee that he has to recognize the National Assembly. ... If these elections are democratic with all guarantees we will recognize [Maduro as Venezuela's president]," Antonio Gutierrez Limones, the chairman of Spain's foreign affairs committee of the senate, said.
The lawmaker noted that many international organizations and countries have been calling on Maduro to hold elections so that Venezuelans have a chance to decide their future.
The economic sanctions imposed on the Latin American country by the United States and European countries have exacerbated the political and financial crisis in Venezuela and prompt elections could provide a solution to the dire situation, Limones added.
On Monday, Maduro announced that, as part of a deal he had reached with the opposition, pro-government legislators would return to the National Assembly, Venezuela's de jure legislature, after a two-year absence. However, the Venezuelan president emphasized that the house was still considered to be illegal.
In 2017, Maduro declared the 167-seat National Assembly to be illegitimate after the Supreme Court ruled the assembly to be in contempt of the law for incorporating several lawmakers accused of buying votes claims they denied as well as for allegedly passing legislation that violated the Venezuelan constitution. Subsequently, Maduro created the parallel pro-government Constituent Assembly that superseded the congress.
