U.S. adds Venezuela’s leader to sanctions list
Maduro targeted over ‘sham election’ to consolidate power
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s socialist government on Monday claimed a popular mandate to dramatically recast the country’s political system even as condemnations of the process poured in from governments around the world and the opposition at home.
The United States added President Nicolas Maduro to a steadily growing list of high-ranking Venezuelan officials targeted by financial sanctions — escalating a tactic that has so far failed to alter the Venezuelan government’s behavior. The Trump administration backed away from earlier threats to sanction Venezuela’s oil industry — a move that could undermine Maduro’s government but raise U.S. gas prices and deepen Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis.
Electoral authorities said more than 8 million people voted Sunday to create a constitutional assembly endowing Maduro’s ruling party with virtually unlimited powers — a figure widely disputed by independent analysts.
The official result would mean the ruling party won more support than it had in any national election since 2013, despite a cratering economy, spiraling inflation, shortages of medicine and malnutrition. Opinion polls showed 85 percent of Venezuelans disapproved of the constitutional assembly and similar numbers disapprove of Maduro’s overall performance.
Independent analysts and opposition leaders estimated the real turnout at less than half the government’s claim in a vote watched by governmentallied observers but no internationally recognized poll monitors.
The Trump administration was quick to denounce the vote.
“Maduro’s sham election is another step toward dictatorship,” Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on Twitter. “We won’t accept an illegit govt. The Venezuelan ppl & democracy will prevail.”
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the governor of the central state of Miranda, urged Venezuelans to protest Monday against an assembly that critics fear will effectively create a single-party state.
The new sanctions freeze any assets Maduro may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with him. They were outlined in a notice by the Treasury Department before a White House announcement.
The monetary impact of the sanctions wasn’t immediately clear as Maduro’s holdings in U.S. jurisdictions, if he has any, weren’t publicized. However, imposing sanctions on a head of state is rare and can be symbolically powerful, leading other countries to similarly shun such a leader. For example, the U.S. has had sanctions against Syria’s President Bashar Assad since 2011.
“Yesterday’s illegitimate elections confirm that Maduro is a dictator who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. “By sanctioning Maduro, the United States makes clear our opposition to the policies of his regime and our support for the people of Venezuela who seek to return their country to a full and prosperous democracy.”
Maduro has said the new assembly will begin to govern within a week. He said he would use the assembly’s powers to bar opposition candidates from running in gubernatorial elections in December unless they sit with his party to negotiate an end to hostilities that have generated four months of protests in which at least 120 people have been killed and nearly 2,000 wounded.