The opposition Leopoldo López announces that his intention is "to return to liberate Venezuela"

Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López said this Tuesday, at his first press conference in Madrid after leaving Venezuela last Saturday, that he never wanted to leave his country and that his intention is "to return to liberate Venezuela."

López has described the government of Nicolás Maduro, whom he has called a “criminal”, a “dictatorship”.

The appearance of López at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid has brought together dozens of journalists in person during these times of pandemic.

The expectation was not surprising: it was the first time since 2014 that the Venezuelan dissident spoke to the media.

Under a sign from the Government Center of Juan Guaidó and flanked by a Venezuelan flag, accompanied by his father Leopoldo López Gil, a PP MEP;

his wife, Lilian Tintori, and one of his sons, López began his remarks by thanking "God, the Spanish and the Government of Pedro Sánchez" for their freedom.

“I did not want to leave Venezuela.

Circumstances have led me to it.

I pick up the words of Rómulo Bethancourt (former president of his country): We will return.

Venezuelans in exile are going to return to Venezuela ”.

As he already advanced in his messages on social networks, López has not wanted to give information about his departure from the country, although he has denied any kind of pact with the Spanish Government for his freedom.

He has barely provided details about his bizarre adventure to leave Venezuela, but he has specified that he traveled on a commercial flight.

In his appearance, he has outlined his plans for his new political stage as presidential commissioner for the Center of the Government: “Promote, promote that a free, fair, verifiable presidential election can take place in Venezuela;

make those responsible for human rights violations subject to international justice (...) We will dedicate ourselves to seeking all mechanisms to alleviate the suffering of our people, to guarantee humanitarian and economic aid in one of the crises deepest on the planet ”.

After his flight from Venezuela on Saturday, López arrived in Madrid last Sunday to meet his family on a flight from Miami, with a false identification, since he only had a photocopy of his ID.

His odyssey began traveling by land from the Venezuelan capital to the coast from where he moved by sea to the Dutch island of Aruba and from there by regular flight to the Spanish capital.

The flight of López, a refugee in the Spanish Embassy in Caracas since on April 30, 2019, he broke the house arrest to which he was subjected to participate in a failed uprising against President Nicolás Maduro, prompted a possible negotiation between the Venezuelan authorities and the Spanish Government, which have been denied by both parties.

The Chavista regime has accused the current Spanish ambassador, Jesús Silva, who was relieved of his post a month ago and will soon be replaced, of organizing the flight "of the criminal Leopoldo López" and the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Jorge Arreza, said in a reported that Madrid had violated the Vienna Convention.

However, the reaction from Caracas this time has been much less vocal than in past diplomatic incidents between the two countries.

The Spanish executive, for its part, limited itself to ensuring that the departure of the opposition leader was due to "a personal and voluntary decision."

The flight from Venezuela of Leopoldo López suspends the plans of the party bloc that seeks to force the resignation of Maduro and opens an uncertain scenario regarding the leadership of the opposition front, which is increasingly fragmented.

The Venezuelan opposition tries to concentrate all its organizational and political capital in a response to the parliamentary elections called for December 6.

However, it doesn't seem like an easy task.

The main leader of the opposition to the regime, Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly, recognized as acting head of state by some 60 countries and who is currently in Venezuela, has announced that he will not attend because he considers that there are not enough democratic guarantees. , and has chosen to convene an alternative popular consultation to those elections, - also questioned by the European Union - for which the date of December 12 is being considered.

Its purpose is "to reject fraud and exercise the majority as part of the strategy to achieve the transition that leads to free, fair and verifiable presidential and parliamentary elections."

Guaidó announced his plan last Thursday in an event broadcast on social networks, the only instrument the opposition has to communicate with the country.

He did so under the label #AlzaTuVoz, along with the staff of the so-called G-4, which groups the four main opposition forces.

López, founder of the Voluntad Popular party, has spent three years in the Ramo Verde military prison, of the 14 he was sentenced to for his participation in the wave of protests against the Maduro regime, between February and March 2014, in 43 people died and 3,000 were injured. After going to house arrest in 2017 and 18 months later in refuge in the Spanish Embassy, ​​today he is in Madrid, where other opponents such as Antonio Ledezma, who was the metropolitan mayor of Caracas, reside. The Spanish capital has long since become, together with Bogotá and Miami, one of the main poles of Venezuelan dissidence.