Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's government will not take into account an anticipated parliamentary vote to recognise Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez as winner of a disputed presidential election,

Esteban González Pons, a spokesman for the PP, accused the Spanish government of being “an accomplice of the regime of Nicolás Maduro in the plan to neuter the democratic opposition” and condemned what he described as the “connivance of Spain in a coup d’état”.

The opposition candidate in Venezuela's recent presidential election has arrived in Spain after fleeing his homeland. A Spanish Air Force plane carrying Edmundo González landed at Torrejon airbase in Madrid, where he will be granted political asylum.