Venezuelan opposition charges congress and swears in leader
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido pushed through rows of national guardsmen blocking congress to retake his seat on Tuesday, and in a darkened building with no power he pledged to press forward in his bid to topple the country’s socialist president.
The man recognized by the U.S. and more than 50 other nations as Venezuela’s rightful president burst through the National Assembly’s wooden doors along with several dozen opposition lawmakers after navigating their way past state security officers wearing helmets and carrying shields.
“We want to regain Venezuela, damn it,” Guaido said as he pressed through the crowd of guards and lawmakers.
Once inside, he led opposition lawmakers in boisterously singing the country’s anthem. Shortly thereafter, electricity in the building went out, but legislators continued in the dimly lit assembly, shouting into microphones that did not work to declare Guaido the president of the only opposition-controlled national institution. “This is a show of what can happen when we are united,” Guaido yelled.
The dramatic meeting followed several days of upheaval in which government-backed lawmakers announced they were taking control of the National Assembly. The legislature is the opposition’s lone national platform and remains a thorn in President Nicolas Maduro’s quest to consolidate power.
The fight for control of the legislature comes as the opposition is struggling to regain its momentum, nearly a year after Guaido declared himself interim president as tens of thousands of Venezuelans took to the street in protest against Maduro.
Internal feuds, corruption scandals and a failed try at dialogue with Maduro’s government have left opposition lawmakers scrambling to find a unified path forward.
The latest brouhaha over the legislature could equip the opposition with new impetus, analysts said, but also gives Maduro an opportunity to make his apparent power-grab look more like another baffling political dispute.
“They do these things in part because they benefit from confusion,” said David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, said of Maduro’s government.
Guaido, 36, has served as leader of the National Assembly for the last year and argues that under the constitution, he is Venezuela’s interim president on grounds that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was not legitimate.
He was expected to be re-elected the legislature’s president Sunday, but government security forces blocked him and other lawmakers from entering the ornate legislative building.
Instead, Luis Parra, a one-time opposition ally mired in accusations of bribe-taking, claimed he’d won and was the new legislature’s president. He contends he obtained 81 votes of the 150 lawmakers present, an accusation Guaido’s faction denies. Guaido oversaw a separate session at a Venezuelan newspaper Sunday in which he said that 100 lawmakers voted to renew his term as the leader of congress.
On Tuesday, Parra took a seat, purportedly as the legislature’s president, and attempted to begin a session to discuss woes including Venezuela’s gas shortages, but he fled with his allies as Guaido made his way into the building.
The legislature’s electricity soon went off in what the opposition called an attempt to sabotage their session. Guaido and others turned on their cellphone flashlights and proceeded to swear him into office.