Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro speaks at the inaugural ceremony of the Council of Economic Export Chapter in La Guaira state, September 20, 2024. Photo: Presidential Press.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro criticized the false statements of the former far-right presidential candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, who has recently claimed that he had been coerced by members of the Venezuelan government to sign a letter recognizing President Maduro’s victory in the July 28 presidential elections.
On Friday, September 20, during the inauguration of the Council of Economic Export Chapter in La Guaira, President Maduro commented that “nobody can use his own clumsiness in self-defense… Nobody can use his own cowardice and his own betrayal of his followers in self-defense,” referring to González Urrutia’s statements.
Labeling González a “coward,” President Maduro said that behind González’s statements, there is a strategy to mount a version of Guaidó 2.0, and “if the first one was bad, the second one is worse.” He added that history has shown that events first occur as tragedy and then as farce. “In this case, tragicomedy,” he said.
Audio Recordings Proving No Coercion of Former Candidate Edmundo González Published
President Maduro wondered why the opposition politician, now in Spain as an asylee, claimed that he acted under coercion when, on several previous occasions, he stated that he acted voluntarily. “Who is more coerced or persecuted? González Urrutia, Delcy Rodríguez, or Nicolás Maduro, against whom drones, missiles, and sanctions have been launched in the world? Have you seen me cowering?”
He reflected that being a politician in Venezuela is “a matter of values. I feel sorry for you, González Urrutia, that you, who asked me for clemency, have no values,” he added.
He concluded by inviting the country’s productive sectors to move forward and to pay no attention to the antipolitics of the opposition. “Let us not waste any more time on those people. At the end of the day, what matters is the work we do for the Venezuelan people,” Maduro emphasized.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SF
