Madrid, February 4 - The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, declared that his country recognizes the opposition Juan Guaidó as president in charge of Venezuela.

"The Government of Spain announces that it officially recognizes the president of the Assembly of Venezuela, Mr. Guaidó Márquez as president in charge of Venezuela," he said at a hearing in La Moncloa.

He stressed that "the horizon is to convene free, democratic and guaranteed elections in the shortest possible time."

During his speech, Sánchez defended that "the democratic legitimacy of Juan Guaidó emanates from his condition as president of the National Assembly of Venezuela," an organ that, in his view, emerged "

On several occasions, the head of the Spanish Government recalled that the recognition of Guaidó has as its main horizon the convocation for his part of presidential elections in which no political option is excluded.

"We are not going to take a step back in this effort," he insisted.

Sanchez's speech focused on repeating that "it is the people of Venezuela who have to decide exclusively their destiny", but at the same time made it clear that Spain will work from multilateral organizations "so that full democracy returns" to the country.

"Full democracy means the primacy of human rights, it means political pluralism and means that there are no political prisoners in Venezuela," he said.

In this framework, Madrid will contact in the coming hours with institutions and governments of Europe and Latin America to "join efforts to the democratic cause in Venezuela."