The renowned Spanish political scientist and intellectual, Juan Carlos Monedero, is in Venezuela, and we have had the opportunity to interview him exclusively. Monedero studied Political Science at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and completed a doctorate at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Since 1992, he has been a professor of Political Science at the UCM.
In addition, the Spanish intellectual has been general coordinator of Izquierda Unida, in Spain. From 2014 to 2015, he founded and was part of the “Podemos” (We Can) party; However, shortly afterward he disassociated himself from the political space, although he maintains a bond of friendship and shares a common history with the leaders of said political party.
In Venezuela, he was an advisor to President Hugo Chávez and, currently, he is also an advisor to President Nicolás Maduro, who usually invites Monedero to different activities, given the support and defense of the Bolivarian Government, which Monedero has shown both inside and outside Venezuela.
He has collaborated on political debate programs, such as: “La Tuerka” on Tele K; “Fort Apache”; “Las Mañanas de Cuatro” in ‘Al Rojo Vivo’, by La Sexta; “On the border”, on Público TV; among others. Monedero has published numerous articles and books, the latest: “Politics for the Indifferent.”
Within the framework of the Venezuelan presidential elections, held on July 28, and especially the violent events that occurred in the following days to try to ignore or try to not recognize the electoral results, we talked with Monedero about various relationship topics and this is what he told us.
The Venezuelan opposition claimed that they won the elections. The US and the EU announced that they would not recognise the election results won by Maduro. Venezuela is again at the forefront of the world agenda. How do you evaluate this situation?
The Venezuelan opposition has been claiming that they won the presidential elections since 1998, when Hugo Chávez first came to power. On this occasion, both the United States and the European Union have not recognized that the electoral results show Edmundo González as the winner, but rather what the United States and the European Union want is to see the result clearly. That is, and let’s think that the president of Argentina himself, Javier Milei, who initially recognized Edmundo González, has now said that María Corina Machado has not yet been able to prove that Edmundo González was the winner.
It seems evident that the United States, the European Union and some Latin American countries with extreme right-wing governments, such as Argentina, have realized that the information that has been published on María Corina Machado’s website is false and constitutes a lie, a great farce. Therefore, we are at an impasse where it seems sensible that it is the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) of Venezuela that can elucidate what is happening, because the TSJ is the highest body in the country to elucidate an electoral dispute of these characteristics. .
What seems evident is that, unlike other times, the US and the EU have not recognized Edmundo González as president, something that did not happen with Juan Guaidó in the past. In addition, the West is in the paradox that if it recognized Edmundo González as president of Venezuela, who they would stop recognizing is not Maduro, but Juan Guaidó.
Do you expect a new foreign intervention led by Washington and involving some countries in the region and Europe?
Regarding a new foreign intervention that involves countries in the region and Europe, I think that is practically impossible. Not only because the Western world is embarked on a war in Ukraine, which Russia is winning, and the tension in the Middle East with the genocide in Gaza, and now with the aggression in Lebanon. This scenario represents a very complicated front for the United States that I believe cannot, nor does it wish to aggravate this context with a confrontation in/with Venezuela.
Of course, and unfortunately, there are sectors that certainly want a war in Latin America. For example, those who sell weapons, the sectors of the so-called “reconstruction” would be delighted for Venezuela to burn, they would sell weapons and then hire them “to rebuild” the country in exchange for stealing their oil and natural wealth for life. But I don’t see the opportunity, especially because the BRICS would not agree, Brazil, China, Russia, India, South Africa would not agree, nor would Iran, by the way. Mexico would not agree, and there would be no support for an exit of that type.
We hear calls from the opposition for the Bolivarian Army to rise up against President Maduro. Is it possible that the Venezuelan army responds positively to this call?
When the opposition to Maduro calls on the Venezuelan Army to rise up, they are committing a crime. This is consistent with what the Venezuelan opposition has always been doing and it is also consistent with something that I think is new, which is the isolation of María Corina Machado, a woman disqualified from holding political office, a woman who knows that her possibility of governing in Venezuela can only be from the ashes of Venezuela.
Machado is not going to be the candidate for anything, she cannot be, legally she can’t be. At some point, another right-wing candidate will emerge, like Manuel Rosales, for example, who will prevent her from claiming to be the leader of the Venezuelan opposition. However, she insists on dragging those 5 million votes into the abyss.
The call to the Army, I reiterate, is a crime and it does not make any kind of sense that the woman who sent that army to potentially fight against the United States, by requesting an invasion of Venezuela by the North American army, now asks that same Venezuelan Army that rises up against Maduro.
I think that this call to carry out a military coup d’état is nonsense, and is part of this lady’s dissociation.
Some leaders, such as Lula, traditionally known as an ally of Bolivarian Venezuela, have expressed some doubts about the recent elections and have called on Caracas to explain the detailed results. How do you interpret this? Does the Brazilian government want to move more in line with the US in Latin America?
I don’t think Lula has allied himself with the United States, quite the opposite. I believe that the role of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia is holding back the recognition of Edmundo González by the United States, because USA does not have the strength to achieve that recognition, without the support of other countries.
What Lula has proposed is that Brazil is going to accept the result established by the institutions and the institutions are the National Electoral Council (CNE) and, now for administrative litigation, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ). And Lula, like López Obrador, has said “we are going to recognize what the official authorities say”. And if everything goes as one assumes, that is, that the CNE has presented the Electoral Acts that are valid as a result of the elections, those Electoral Acts are coming from machines audited before, during and after the electoral process; the Acts that the political parties have recognized as valid; Acts that during the past 32 elections have been recognized as valid, that is, those that come out of the polls in Venezuela. All this will be clarified, and there will be no doubt that Nicolás Maduro has been re-elected president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
It is worth remembering that the ballot boxes in Venezuela are machines. This is something that the Western world that votes in physical ballot boxes has not completely understood. The ballot box in Venezuela is the machine, and the result that comes out of the machine is sacred and inviolable. I tell you, when this result comes out and also coincides with that of the reservations that the different parties have, there is no choice but to recognize the result.
Therefore, this is what the president of Mexico, López Obrador, President Lula, and the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, and so on, are looking for, that the elections be resolved peacefully and that the country can run in peace, prosper economically, get Venezuelan emigrants to return, etc. The opposite can only be the desire of dissociated people who see only a personal chance in a war. I hope that Venezuela can move peacefully like the rest of the countries in the region.
