By Deutsche Welle
20 Jul 2024, 20:27 PM EDT
The presidential candidate of Venezuela’s main opposition alliance, Edmundo González Urrutia, promised on Saturday that if he wins the July 28 elections he will turn the country into a “land of grace” that has “open arms for everyone.”
“Today I want to speak especially to the millions of Venezuelans who have had to leave their homeland in recent years in search of conditions for personal and professional development. That is going to change. We will make Venezuela once again a land of grace where each one of you will find conditions for professional development and growth,” said the former ambassador.
“We will make that daily dream of hugging your loved ones come true in your country. Rest assured that Venezuela will once again be that hospitable country where everyone wanted to come to achieve their dreams. That is what we will be again, a country with open arms for everyone,” said the standard-bearer of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) in a video posted on social media.
Addressing those who have left the country “fleeing because they have felt threatened in their own land,” he said that Venezuela “will be a country of reconciliation and encounter, where everyone will be welcome.”
“Change is coming, and it is coming for everyone. Long live a free Venezuela,” added González Urrutia, one of the ten candidates in the upcoming elections, in which the head of state, Nicolás Maduro, will also compete. He is seeking a third consecutive six-year term in power, which he has held since 2013.
Some 7.77 million Venezuelans have left the country, according to the Interagency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants (R4V), a figure that the government rejects and reduces to about two million.