Venezuela’s opposition leader, Edmundo González Urrutia, announced that he will talk with Joe Biden in Washington

Opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, whom the United States and several countries in Europe and Latin America recognize as the elected president of Venezuela, announced that he has planned “a conversation” with the leader of the White House, Joe Biden. He did it hours before leaving for Washington this Sunday at the conclusion of a visit to Argentina and Uruguay..

“We are planning a conversation with President Biden and we are waiting for definitions regarding the new authorities,” he said, referring to the next government of Donald Trump, who takes office on January 20. It was not clear when the meeting with Biden would take place. González Urrutia also plans to visit Panama on Wednesday and the Dominican Republic on Thursday.

Urrutia will also meet in the United States with the Republican senator of Florida, Rick Scott, who said this Sunday that he was “looking forward” to his meeting with the opposition diplomat. whom he recognizes as the winner of the Venezuelan elections.

“I look forward to meeting with President-elect Edmundo González next week and look forward to his just inauguration as leader of Venezuela this January 10,” said Scott, who has been a strong detractor of Maduro and his government. The Republican promotes a bipartisan law called STOP MADURO, with which he hopes to increase the reward offered in 2020 by Donald Trump’s government from $15 to $100 million. to capture the Venezuelan autocrat.

This last Saturday, Urrutia met with the Argentine president, Javier Milei, and his chancellor, Gerardo Werthein, after being applauded by hundreds of Venezuelans who greeted him on the balcony of the Casa Rosada. “Argentina will not be complicit in silence in the face of the injustices and abuses of the Maduro regime,” Milei said.

González Urrutia assures that he will take office as president of Venezuela on January 10 in place of Maduro, proclaimed re-elected amid allegations of fraud. The 75-year-old former diplomat told reporters that he will travel to Caracas that day. It will be “simply to take complete possession of the mandate that Venezuelans gave me when they elected,” he assured.

Regarding the details of how he plans to do it, he responded: “I cannot anticipate the circumstances.” “We hope that (Maduro) contributes to a peaceful and orderly transition.” He has a $100,000 reward offered on Thursday by the Venezuelan scientific police for information leading to his capture.

After his visit to Argentina, González Urrutia arrived in Montevideo on Saturday afternoon to meet with the Uruguayan president, Luis Lacalle Pou, and Foreign Minister Omar Paganini.

During the meeting at the presidential residence, the Venezuelan opponent gave Lacalle Pou, as he had done earlier with Milei, a copy of the election records which, he claims, prove his victory in the elections. They also spoke “about the institutional crisis derived from the Chavista dictatorship’s ignorance of the electoral result, and about the political persecution of which it is a victim.”

“We are going to achieve the recovery of our Venezuela and the freedom of all political prisoners,” González Urrutia, who also greeted a group of Venezuelans, highlighted to the press after the meeting.

For her part, the head of the opposition, María Corina Machado, thanked Uruguay in X for accepting Urrutia’s visit as a sign of “an indelible bond.”

Machado was banned by the Chavista regime to prevent their participation in the presidential elections last July. After the election he went underground.

González Urrutia was the unitary opposition candidate in the July 28 elections due to the banning of Machado. He sought asylum in Spain after being accused by the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office of “conspiracy” and “criminal association.”

The Venezuelan authorities proclaimed Maduro re-elected for a third consecutive six-year term (2025-2031), without publishing details of the scrutiny so far, while the opposition denounces fraud and claims González’s victory based on the publication of 85% of the electoral records on a website.

“Maduro will never be able to show a single report because we devastated the entire country and they know it,” Machado also wrote in .