We will stay on the street. juan guaido swore, “until Venezuela is liberated!”
The then 35-year-old leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly was quickly backed by the Trump administration and governments around the world on the grounds that he was now the nation’s top democratically elected official.
A rare unifying figure among the historically restless opposition, Guaidó has said he will be the country’s “interim president” until Maduro steps down – or, at least, agrees to hold free and fair elections.
But almost four years later and with little to show for the effort, the experience seems to be coming to an end. As of Thursday, opposition lawmakers who have rallied behind Guaidó are expected to end his term and eliminate his caretaker government. They approved those moves in a 72-23 preliminary vote last week.
“After four years, we must not continue to maintain a system that has not worked and is a bureaucratic burden,” Nora Bracho, a member of one of the three main opposition parties, told the Washington Post. voting for the end of the interim government. “We have to reinvent ourselves and move forward in our fight.”
At stake is not just the prospect of competitive elections under Maduro’s authoritarian socialist state and US engagement with the country, but also control of key government assets abroad. Under US and other sanctions, the caretaker government administered Houston-based Citgo Petroleum Corp. and gold stored at the Bank of England.
Lawmakers who support Guaidó’s removal say they would establish a committee to protect those assets and manage spending. The National Assembly, elected in 2015, would continue until 2023, but only to legislate on heritage issues.
The assembly was to meet on Thursday for a second and final vote. But on Wednesday evening, his Twitter account, which is controlled by Guaidó’s office, announced that the session had been postponed until January 1. 3.
The Justice First and Democratic Action opposition parties, which favor ousting Guaidó, replied that they had not been consulted and that the session would go ahead as planned. Then, the assembly account tweeted that the assembly could not meet without the president.
Guaidó, now 39, told the Post last year that he would remain interim president “until there is a free and fair presidential election. … This is my constitutional mandate.
Sergio Vergara, opposition congressman for Popular Will, the only major party that still backs Guaidó, warned that removing him would mean recognizing Maduro.
“My question to anyone promoting this is whether the international community would be okay with a violation of the constitution,” he told the Post. He said that some members of the assembly could still be persuaded.
The Biden administration plans to recognize any body proposed by the opposition, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to share internal policy discussions.
“If they change their name or anything, we will still call them the interim government, with the aim of promoting talks” with Maduro’s government and keeping the sanctions in place as a way to leverage negotiations on other issues. new elections, the official said.
“Our point is that we kind of hold all the cards here at this point in terms of sanctions policy,” the official said. “Whether [Maduro] wants us to change this approach and lift the sanctions, what we need are democratic results. »
As Maduro’s grip on power has proven to be enduringthe Biden administration has showed a willingness to deal with him. US officials made a rare trip to the presidential palace in march to discuss energy sanctions and secure the release of two detained Americans.
After an initial round of talks between the opposition and Maduro’s government last month, the administration authorized Chevron to reopen its oil production facilities in Venezuelaprovided that all oil produced is sold to the United States and that all royalties and taxes owed to Venezuela are used to pay off its US debt.
Officials have said they would ease sanctions further if Norway-moderated talks in Mexico continue and yield results, but they are unconvinced that Maduro is serious about relinquishing power through free and fair elections.
But diplomatic engagement could ramp up, analysts say after Republicans’ decisive victories in Florida’s midterm elections the state’s value as a battleground has diminished. Biden administration officials, less concerned with trying to win support from Maduro opponents in the Sunshine State, might see fewer costs in dealing with him, said Tulane University sociologist David Smilde.
The European Union has stopped recognizing Guaidó as interim president, as have many Latin American countries. Many have refused to recognize anyone as president of Venezuela.
The United States, with the help of conservative allies in Latin America, succeeded in barring Maduro’s representatives from Venezuela’s seats in international and regional organizations, including the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Development Bank. , and to replace them with officials from Guaidó. . . But a wave of elections in some of the region’s most powerful countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Chile, has brought leftists to power with different priorities.
“What we want them to do is not normalize or basically ignore what is happening inside Venezuela,” where human rights abuses and corruption still abound, the official said. senior administrative official. “These are the issues that will be fought” in regional organizations. “Do we have the voices to convince other governments not to seat anyone?
The official said Trump’s policy of recognizing Guaidó centers on ousting Maduro; the Biden administration is focused on the negotiations leading up to the election.
“It’s an approach that allows us to stay focused on supporting the democratic process and making it less Guaidó-centric,” the official said.
It’s unclear exactly how much money the opposition manages – or how they use it. At a press conference in September, Guaidó said that between 2020 and 2021 he had spent $130 million from funds “protected by the United States”. In 2021, he said, his government used the money for humanitarian aid, “defending democracy”, the National Assembly and managing foreign assets.
Over the past four years, the caretaker government has faced corruption charges and the misuse of funds – including some of its own members.
Guaidó, a relatively unknown opposition lawmaker before he was named interim president, at one point claimed the support of nearly 60% of Venezuelans in the polls. But a recent poll by Catholic University Andrés Bello and pollster Delphos indicated that more respondents would vote for Maduro than Guaidó now. More than 56% said the caretaker government should disappear altogether.
“The majority of the population wants change, not just from Guaidó,” said Luis Vicente León, director of the Caracas-based polling agency Datanalisis. “They also feel disconnected from the opposition in general, and from the government in general. They feel disconnected from politics.
Schmidt reported from Bogota, Colombia. DeYoung reported from Washington.
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