Last Thursday (27), Juan Guaidó tried once again to demonstrate that he still has political strength in Venezuela. He gathered supporters and marched with them through downtown Caracas to the headquarters of the National Electoral Council. In a speech, he called for the date of the presidential elections to be set and respected and reaffirmed his agreement with primaries to choose a single opposition candidate.
In practice, however, far from preserving the unanimity that he once had among the parties opposed to the dictator Nicolás Maduro, the politician sees his legitimacy increasingly shaken, casting doubts about his position in the eventual election and even his permanence as leader of the National Assembly — on the basis of which he proclaimed himself interim president of the country.
The organ dominated by the opposition and ignored by the dictatorship is preparing to, on January 5, once again elect its leader for the next 12 months. And, as has happened at every end of the year in Venezuela since 2019, the weeks leading up to the vote are full of rumors about the fate of the collegiate – which, strictly speaking, has already exceeded its mandate – and Guaidó.
A little over two weeks ago, the leaders of the four main anti-Maduro parties (Primero Justicia, Acción Democrática, Un Nuevo Tiempo and Voluntad Popular) and the US ambassador assigned to Venezuela met in Panama. , James Story.
After the meeting, information about the direction of the opposition was secretly leaked to vehicles such as the British Financial Times and the Americans Bloomberg and CNN. In general, they dealt with the wear and tear of Guaidó and how long he should be recognized as interim president by Washington.
As the opposition party is no longer unanimous in its political group, each party seems to have stuck a thorn in it, hoping to renew the names put forward for the possible election. The idea of these subtitles is to hold a primary in 2023, maybe in June, to reach a single candidate in 2024.
The date is the one foreseen by the original calendar, although recently the regime’s strongman, Diosdado Cabello, mentioned in a speech that Chavismo is so prepared for the elections that it could hold them “as early as 2023”.
Anyone who knows the dictatorship knows that it is a ruse to try to agitate and divide the opposition, since a single candidate on the other side is not what the regime wants – the more names there are, the easier it is for Maduro to impose himself. Guaidó replied that announcing elections on another date to surprise opponents is a well-known strategy of Chavismo and defended, in a video posted on social media, the thesis that the presidential election is already delayed, since the 2018 one was considered irregular.
The politician attributes the renewed confusion about his continuity or not in the leadership of the National Assembly to an internal dispute between opponents, something that has happened before.
The truth is that the scenario surrounding Caracas today has changed a lot, especially for the US, which has a new interest in the region. With the cost of living and the energy and fuel market shaken by the effects of the Ukrainian War, Venezuela is cited as a possible outlet for an economic partnership due to its large oil reserves.
President Joe Biden faces a low popularity situation on the eve of a legislative election that could end with the end of his party’s majority in the House and Senate, jeopardizing the final half of his administration.
According to sources linked to the dialogues between the dictatorship and the opposition in Mexico, which were interrupted today, the US has already shown that it would be willing to reduce sanctions to regain access to the Venezuelan product, as long as the Chavistas meet certain conditions. Among them, taking the elections scheduled for 2024 seriously and resuming the negotiation table.
The US Undersecretary of State for the region is already holding meetings with Gerardo Blyde and other members of the so-called Venezuelan Unitary Platform to discuss the return of dialogues in Mexico. According to this assessment, it would be the way to guarantee a fairer election in Caracas, without irregularities or indications of manipulation of results, which have been prevalent in recent processes.
Last November’s regional elections marked the return of the opposition, which had boycotted them since the 2015 election for the Legislature, internationally recognized as the country’s last legitimate one — two years later, the regime promoted the vote for the Constituent Assembly that aimed to empty the National Assembly and, in 2018, Maduro was re-elected in a contested race.
In a report, the US State Department said that Washington “recognises interim President Juan Guaidó and supports, together with opposing parties, negotiations that lead to a way out of this situation through free elections.” A chancellery official, requesting anonymity, summarized the Sheet that the situation may not be coherent, but that abandoning recognition of the political would open the way to isolating Maduro in power, which would represent a setback.
In a recent interview with CNN, the opponent reinforced that the commitment that Americans have with him is to accompany him until the election – for which he did not clarify whether he will be a candidate.
Guaidó has led the National Assembly since January 5, 2019. Days later, relying on the fact that the international community had pointed out irregularities in Maduro’s election, he declared that power had been vacant in the country since the end of the dictator’s first term; under the legislation then in force, he would be next in the line of succession. The self-proclamation won the support of more than 50 leaders, including those from Colombia, Brazil and the US (Iván Duque, Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump), and took people to the streets in support for weeks.
Since then, however, a series of serious mistakes have been made, such as the process of sending humanitarian aid through bridges that were then closed on the border with Colombia and the episode of the landing of mercenaries, never well explained, on the Venezuelan coast.
Without quickly delivering what he promised – the fall of Maduro – and finally prevented from taking to the streets by the pandemic, Guaidó saw the support of the masses wane and some international leaders jump out, such as the new Colombian president, Gustavo Petro. The next few weeks will tell who will stay on your boat.
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