they include depriving residency and other rights of an attacker s family members. in tennis, novak djokovic wins a record extending tenth australian open, beating greece s stefanos tsitsipas in straight sets. djokovic also sets a record equalling 22nd grand slam men s title, putting him level with rafael nadal. now it s time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. venezuela s authoritarian leader, nicolas maduro, has, for the moment, outmanoeuvred those forces inside and outside the country, intent on his removal. last month, the opposition gave up on their own alternative president and indicated a willingness to negotiate with maduro. in the us, in latin america, and in europe, they seem ready to engage with the caracas regime, not least because oil supplies are at a premium. my guest is leopoldo lopez, long time venezuelan opposition leader and former political prisoner, now in exile in spain. is it time for him to acknowledge failure? leopoldo lopez, in mad
leopoldo lopez, in madrid, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much. welcome to hardtalk. thank you for the opportunity. welcome to hardtalk. it s great to have you on the show. back in 2019, your big idea as a key leader of the venezuelan opposition was to undermine socialist president nicolas maduro by creating an alternative president and an alternative government. would you now acknowledge that big idea has failed? well, certainly we were not able to remove the dictatorship. and if we are measured by that standard, certainly we didn t get to the results we expected. but it s also true for any other alternative that we ve tried for over 20 years. we ve tried voting. we won the national assembly with two thirds of the vote, and the dictatorship also dismantled the possibility of the national assembly to exercise its constitutional powers. we ve tried by protesting. we ve protested with hundreds of thousands of people throughout the years, and we ve also failed to remove the
supplies are at a premium. my guest is leopoldo lopez, long time venezuelan opposition leader and former political prisoner, now in exile in spain. is it time for him to acknowledge failure? leopoldo lopez, in madrid, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much. thank you for the opportunity. it s great to have you on the show. back in 2019, your big idea as a key leader of the venezuelan opposition was to undermine socialist president nicolas maduro by creating an alternative president and an alternative government. would you now acknowledge that big idea has failed? well, certainly we were not able to remove the dictatorship. and if we are measured by that standard, certainly we didn t get to the results we expected. but it s also true for any other alternative that we ve tried for over 20 years. we ve tried voting. we won the national assembly with two thirds of the vote, and the dictatorship also dismantled the possibility of the national assembly to exercise its constitutio
they include depriving residency and other rights of an attacker s family members. in tennis, novak djokovic wins a record extending tenth australian open, beating greece s stefanos tsitsipas in straight sets. djokovic also sets a record equalling 22nd grand slam men s title, putting him level with rafael nadal. now it s time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. venezuela s authoritarian leader, nicolas maduro, has, for the moment, outmanoeuvred those forces inside and outside the country, intent on his removal. last month, the opposition gave up on their own alternative president and indicated a willingness to negotiate with maduro. in the us, in latin america,
and now we re putting together this liberty congress as an action oriented alliance that will help the movements to promote grassroots activism. we re almost out of time, so this is the last question. when you meet these other democracy activists in countries where the situation is, like in venezuela, extremely difficult, do you leave these meetings very downhearted? because as you ve just said to me, the autocrats seem to have the answers. they control the media, they control the security apparatus, they are prepared to use violence if necessary. i m just not hearing any solutions from the democracy side of the argument. no, i appreciate very much your question, because that s basically our main challenge. our main challenge is not to surrender. it s not to kneel to the pessimism, because many times when people go these are very difficult circumstances, they only focus to tell the bad story, to tell the sad story of what s happening in our own countries. and what we are trying to do