Spain names envoy to Venezuela after a two-year gap

Spain on Tuesday named an ambassador to Venezuela after a two-year gap following tensions with the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

Madrid, which does not recognise the legitimacy of Maduro’s administration, promoted Ramon Santos Martinez, a veteran diplomat who has served in Panama, Bolivia, the United States and in the European Union office in Brussels, to the post.

Since November 2021, Santos Martinez held the post of charge d’affaires in Caracas and headed the Spanish mission.

His predecessor Jesus Silva, who was accused by Caracas of helping the opposition figure Leopoldo Lopez to seek exile in Spain, was pulled out of Caracas at the end of 2020.

The former European Union envoy to Venezuela, Portugal’s Isabel Brilhante Pedrosa, left the country in March 2021 after being declared persona non grata by the Maduro administration.

The EU does not recognise the legitimacy of Maduro’s government, nor the results of legislative elections held in December 2020.

Venezuela’s political crisis has worsened since Maduro declared himself the victor of contested 2018 elections, which were widely seen as fraudulent, and generated widespread street protests.

Maduro’s party and its allies then won legislative elections in 2020 which were boycotted by the main opposition parties.