Reports: Venezuelan ‘Opposition’ to Demand End of Guaidó Government

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido (AFP)
AFP
Christian K. Caruzo

CARACAS — Three of the major Venezuelan “opposition” political parties belonging to the Unitary Platform alliance allegedly formed against the socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro have begun talks to put an end to the nation’s legitimate interim government led by Juan Guaidó, Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional reported on Monday.

The Venezuelan newspaper’s report echoes others published in October that indicated that the Venezuelan “opposition” was planning to dissolve Guaidó’s government. The move would leave the Maduro regime uncontestedly running the country. Neither the United States nor 50 other countries recognize Maduro as the nation’s legitimate president.

Guaidó assumed the interim presidency of Venezuela in January 2019 at the end of Maduro’s last legitimate presidential term in accordance with the nation’s constitution. Maduro clung to power via holding sham presidential elections in 2018 in which he banned all opposition candidates aside from his handpicked puppet rivals from participating.

From the moment it was established, Venezuela’s interim presidency had three self-appointed goals: the cessation of Maduro’s usurpation of power, a transitional government, and free elections. Guaidó accomplished none of them and Maduro — who controls all of Venezuela’s armed forces — instead of losing power, further tightened his grip on the nation in the following years. Maduro ousted, with no real resistance from Guaidó, the opposition-led National Assembly in a sham legislative election in December 2020, then held sham regional elections in December 2021 — with the “opposition” participating in the latter.

As such, Guaidó’s interim presidency remained nothing more than a symbolic position that never held power in Venezuela other than maintaining custody of Venezuela’s foreign assets, some of which have been returned to the Maduro regime. Among those returned to Maduro is the Colombian-Venezuelan fertilizer company Monómeros, which Colombia’s far-left president Gustavo Petro handed over to Maduro mere hours after being taking office in August.

El Nacional‘s report states that, according to “opposition” member Juan Pablo Guanipa, his party, Justice First, along with two of the four major parties in the Unitary Platform – Democratic Action (a member of the Socialist International) and A New Era party (also a member of the Socialist International) – are discussing the dissolution of Guaidó’s interim presidency and all of its entities, leaving only precepts that involve the protection and safeguard of Venezuela’s foreign assets.

The Unitary Platform is the latest iteration of the coalition of “opposition” parties in Venezuela. While the coalition has reformed itself several times across more than two decades and has taken different names such as the Coordinadora Democrática (Democratic Coordinator) and the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (Democratic Unity Roundtable), its core has always been composed of the same political parties and leaders.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has continuously insisted that both the Maduro regime and the Unitary Platform resume negotiations towards celebrating “free and fair” elections. Both sides have repeatedly engaged in negotiations over the span of two decades and under the auspices of myriad mediators and governments that have acted as mediators, never producing any visible changes in Venezuela.

The Maduro regime and the Unitary Platform briefly resumed negotiations in Mexico towards the end of November, signing an agreement that will grant the Maduro regime control of $3 billion of the nation’s roughly $27 billion frozen overseas bank account assets.

In an effort to entice Maduro back to the negotiating table, the Biden Administration has granted several concessions to the socialist dictator throughout 2022. The White House granted the liberation of Maduro’s convicted drug-trafficking nephews in a prisoner swap and the removal of Maduro’s former treasurer, another Maduro nephew, from the list of sanctioned individuals. Washington also held a series of negotiations that culminated in oil sanctions relief through a license that allows California-based Chevron to extract Venezuelan oil for its sale in the United States. 

In spite of that, Maduro has explicitly stated that no “free and fair” elections will ever take place in Venezuela until the United States and other parties rescind all sanctions on his socialist regime. Maduro has also vaguely expressed the possibility of holding presidential elections in 2023 instead of holding them on their “correct” 2024 date.

From its inception, the validity of Venezuela’s interim presidency has been granted via a Transition Statute that is renewed on a yearly basis. The latest extension will expire on January 5, 2023. The opposition-led National Assembly, elected in 2015, must reconvene over the next few days to determine the fate of Venezuela’s interim presidency.

Juan Guaidó, via the opposition-led National Assembly’s Twitter account, released a letter on Monday calling for the opposition-led legislature to meet on Thursday to discuss the reform of the Transition Stature, which would extend the validity of his interim government for an additional year.

“I have decided to convene a session to discuss the aforementioned reform that proposes the extension of the validity of the Statute for the Transition, which currently governs us and which is the product of political consensus,” the letter read.

Venezuelan news website Noticiero Digital claimed on Monday that it had obtained a copy of the document promoted by the “opposition” political parties calling for the dissolution of Guaidó’s government. While the letter does not recognize Maduro’s rule as legitimate, it does not recognize Guaidó’s presidency either, opting to grant legitimacy to a Delegate Commision of the opposition-led National Assembly for a period of 12 months starting on January 5, 2023.

The commission, according to the news website, would be tasked with “promoting democracy” and protecting Venezuela’s foreign assets through a corresponding board of directors.

Twice-failed perennial presidential candidate and “opposition” figurehead Henrique Capriles Radonski heavily criticized Guaidó’s interim presidency in a press conference on Monday where he called for the end of the interim government. 

“What good is the interim government for the interests of Venezuelans? It does not increase salaries, it does not manage the economy, schools, education, health, housing,” Capriles said. “The problem is that the interim government became the modus vivendi of a group of people using preserving assets as blackmail.”

“If I could say something to those who have the responsibility of making a decision [regarding the continuity of Guaidó’s interim presidency] is that they do not allow themselves to be blackmailed, enough of that modus vivendi,” the “opposition” figurehead continued.

Capriles, who was the “opposition’s” presidential candidate against Hugo Chávez in 2012 and against Maduro in 2013 following Chávez’s death, was banned by the Maduro regime from running in any public office election for 15 years in 2017. The Justice First politician is also one of the most prominent establishment opposition figureheads who have openly called for the end of all sanctions imposed upon the socialist Maduro regime.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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