Showdown Looms as Venezuela’s Lawmakers Refuse to Budge for Maduro’s Socialist ‘Assembly’

Freddy Guevara
AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos
Frances Martel

“The only way you are getting rid of this Parliament is by killing the 112 representatives who are here,” opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara said on Tuesday, asserting that Venezuela’s National Assembly will not give up their seats to the socialist parallel legislature dictator Nicolás Maduro is scheduled to install on August 3.

The National Assembly’s defiance of the new “Constituents’ Assembly,” chosen in an election Sunday that most countries of the Western Hemisphere have rejected as a “sham,” sets up a potentially violent showdown between the democratically elected members of the nation’s lawmaking body and the socialist candidates Maduro has tasked with replacing them and drafting a new constitution, one critics fear will greatly expand Maduro’s powers.

The government did not feature any opposition candidates on the ballots of the July 30 election, a point Guevara, the de facto head of the Popular Will party while leader Leopoldo López remains a prisoner of conscience, highlighted during remarks Tuesday. “Just as we said, this was an internal Socialist Party (PSUV) election where the usual suspects keep hold of power,” he argued:

Guevara warned that, upon the swearing in of the “Constituents’ Assembly” on Thursday, the government may seek to remove the current National Assembly by force. “They are mistaken if they think that we are going to hand over the [Federal Legislative] Palace, we have no weapons, they will try bullets or blows, but we will be here legislating,” he asserted.

Guevara urged civilians to assemble before the legislative headquarters on the day the “Constituents’ Assembly” is scheduled to take over to protect their democratically elected lawmakers. The presence of a large assembly of protesters—banned from assembling in any form by the government last week—raises concerns of an outbreak of violence as Maduro’s chosen lawmakers face off against the Venezuelan people’s choice. Violence has been a staple of protests since they began on a daily basis in March, with the Venezuelan site Runrunes documenting 112 violent deaths in clashes between unarmed protesters and the Venezuelan military since then.

On Wednesday, the National Assembly unanimously approved a bill to investigate fraud during Sunday’s election, following the publication of multiple reports finding evidence that the socialist-run National Electoral Commission (CNE) doctored the vote on Sunday. The bill passed in the presence of the ambassadors of France, the UK, Spain, and Mexico, all nations that have rejected the legitimacy of the new lawmaking body:

The Maduro regime, meanwhile, has begun distributing credentials to the socialist candidates appointed to replace the National Assembly, among them First Lady Cilia Flores, former foreign minister Delcy Rodríguez, and former second-in-command Diosdado Cabello, accused of being the head of the Cartel de los Soles cocaine trafficking gang. According to “constituent” María Alejandra Díaz, the illegitimate lawmakers are seeking to “put the house in order, to make justice seeking peace. There cannot be peace if there is no justice, and we must recover tranquility in Venezuela.”

Venezuelan state television has claimed that the “constituents” will take their places in the National Assembly on Thursday. The new assembly will use the nation’s constitution to claim, CNN predicts, that the legitimate lawmaking body cannot stop them. The Venezuelan constitution—approved in 1999 by the socialist Hugo Chávez regime—states that, once approved, the “Constituents’ Assembly” takes precedence over the lawmaking body, which can no longer interfere in its affairs. Socialist leaders including Cabello have been transparent in the intention of the government to dissolve the National Assembly following the election of a majority opposition coalition in 2015.

The “Constituents’ Assembly” is the second attempt at dissolving the National Assembly this year. In March, the socialist-controlled Supreme Court issued a ruling installing itself as the nation’s lawmaking body, which triggered daily protests against the government that continue today. The Supreme Court eventually rescinded that ruling in response international pressure shortly before Maduro announced his plan to draft a new constitution.

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