The acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, has distanced herself from the "show" surrounding the return of opposition leader María Corina Machado, who has returned to the country this Sunday after eleven months abroad, and has insisted on the need to maintain the already open political dialogue with the opposition.
Asked by journalists about the way Machado has re-entered Venezuela, Rodríguez dismissed the matter with a "I don't care." Immediately afterward, she criticized the staging: "The show could have been avoided. Let's move away from the show and focus on making politics very serious."
The Venezuelan official emphasized that "many beneficiaries of the amnesty law have been able to enter through the new transitional structures of the airports," although she did not specify whether that was the procedure used by Machado for her return to the country.
Without directly naming her, Rodríguez accused the opposition figure of having "harmed Venezuela" and of having "requested sanctions, external aggressions." Therefore, she stated that she hopes those who acted that way "have some remorse." "Perhaps there is remorse, regret, and they can contribute something to the country," she added.
In response to questions about possible political persecution, Rodríguez firmly stated that she herself was "politically persecuted along with my family" and insisted that "There is no political persecution in Venezuela."
Rodríguez has once again focused on the ongoing negotiation table with the opposition, which, as she explained, seeks "a deep process of transformation" of the country. She highlighted that in these conversations, the deputy of the National Assembly of 2015 --controlled by the opposition-- Dinorah Figuera and the current president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, her brother, have participated, who has so far promoted three rounds of work focused on political reforms and ways to "recover the gold" in order to "put it at the service of national development."
To conclude, the acting president has sent a congratulatory message to the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for his victory in the second round of the presidential elections held on Sunday. In her opinion, "Brazil gave a lesson that neither extremism nor fanaticism of any kind is imposed."