Venezuela rallies seen as declining
Guaido advised to shift tactics
CARACAS, Venezuela — When opposition leader Juan Guaido returned to Venezuela from a world tour during which he met President Donald Trump, he turned his focus back to ousting socialist President Nicolas Maduro.
But after Guaido called for a street protest where only a modest number of supporters showed up Tuesday, and they were scattered mid-march, ducking tear gas fired by heavily armed security forces, analysts say it is time for Guaido and his international backers to refine their approach.
While opposition protests drew as many as 1 million participants in 2016, then hundreds of thousands in early 2018 when Guaido announced plans to oust Maduro, they are now drawing thousands, if that. And none has budged the government. Observers say people are weary, fearful of government supporters and focused on survival in the country’s economic collapse.
“The modest turnout [for Tuesday’s protest] once again suggests the need for a pivot in strategy,” said David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America. “International pressure and street mobilizations are not going to make the Maduro government fall.”
Smilde said Venezuela’s opposition, which is backed by roughly 60 nations, should focus on how to force fairness in legislative elections expected later this year and better communicate to followers the need to shift strategies.
Opposition lawmaker Stalin Gonzalez has been seen on state TV news segments participating in negotiations with Maduro representatives aimed at overhauling Venezuela’s elections commission, but Guaido’s allies have not talked about it.
“Guaido, Stalin [Gonzalez] and the others inside their coalition need to speak to the public clearly and say that working for legislative elections is their policy,” Smilde said. “They need to exercise actual leadership to come up with a new path that does not begin with ending” Maduro’s presidency.
Guaido in early 2019 rose to the center of Venezuela’s political fray as head of the opposition-dominated National Assembly. He claimed presidential powers under the constitution and vowed to end Maduro’s rule, joining with his international backers in arguing that the socialist leader was fraudulently reelected in 2018.
Opposition leaders on Wednesday showed no signs of shifting their strategy. Lawmaker and Guaido ally Juan Pablo Guanipa announced a new push to take to the streets. Starting on Thursday they planned a rally in support of health workers followed by a weekend mobilization in the “neighborhoods and barrios, the streets of Venezuela,” he said.
“This country needs sufficient pressure to be generated to bring political change in Venezuela,” Guanipa said, without giving details of demonstrations.