Venezuelan opposition leader says regime officials are "exploring Maduro's departure"

Opposition leader Leopoldo López responded this Monday to accusations from the regime's attorney general, Tarek William Saab, insisting that the pro-democracy movement is not alone in its desire to rid Venezuela of its current leadership.

According to López, many regime officials have met to “explore Maduro's departure.”

After Saab claimed that former oil minister Tareck El Aissami conspired with several opposition leaders to sabotage Nicolás Maduro's economic recovery plan, López rejected the prosecutor’s allegations and accused him of also participating in “conversations” to remove Maduro from power.

.@TarekWiliamSaab, tú más que nadie sabes que también has tenido conversaciones para explorar la salida de Maduro. Muchos son los que lo han hecho y lo hacen dentro de la dictadura. Así que no te hagas el loco, montando una nueva olla en mi contra. A ti también te tienen grabado.…

— Leopoldo López (@leopoldolopez) April 29, 2024

Although he admitted having maintained communications with Samark López, a businessman and financial operator, El Aissami emphasized that the real people responsible for the PDVSA-Cripto plot are those who have control of the country's financial and oil institutions.

“Tarek William Saab, you more than anyone know that you have also had conversations to explore Maduro’s departure. There are many who have done it and do it within the dictatorship. So don't act crazy, raising a new pot against me. They have you recorded too. “Everything falls under its own weight,” López wrote on his X account.

Saab responded on Monday morning that opponents Julio Borges, Carlos Ocariz, Carlos Vecchio and Leopoldo López are involved with El Aissami and the PDVSA-Cripto corruption case, saying their objective was to “implode the country's economy” and generate “social unrest.”

According to the prosecutor, Samark spoke for about 40 hours with Borges and former Sucre Mayor Carlos Ocariz, who was recently disqualified from running for as a candidate in political races.

For his part, Ocariz is now urging Venezuelans to vote for Edmundo González Urrutia, unanimously chosen last week as their candidate for the presidential elections on July 28.

To prove his claim, he revealed audio recordings of a 2020 conversation between Samark, a businessman, and Borges, an exiled former deputy, in which they spoke about plans to provoke an uprising that would result in the departure of Nicolás Maduro from power.

Ocariz also admitted to having had conversations with Samark López, but said they were actually related to the COVID-19 relief as part of an attempt to help Venezuela get support from international organizations.

Mi respuesta ante las falsas acusaciones el día de hoy. pic.twitter.com/vH7nU8quYF

— Carlos Ocariz (@CarlosOcariz) April 30, 2024