Maduro tightens noose around Venezuela’s opposition
NICOLÁS MADURO’S government moved aggressively to wipe out what remains of resistance to his socialist rule, attempting to install a pliant leadership in congress in a move opponents compared to an attempted coup in Venezuela’s last democratic institution.
The surprise gambit took place during a chaotic National Assembly session on Sunday at which Maduro’s chief challenger, Juan Guaidó, expected to be re-elected head of the oppositiondominated legislature – and in the view of many countries, Venezuela’s legitimate leader.
With security forces in riot gear blocking entry to the neoclassical legislature, Guaidó tried unsuccessfully to scale an iron fence to enter. Inside, lawmakers loyal to Maduro nimbly rushed to choose a substitute leader from a small faction of opposition deputies recently banished for allegedly taking government bribes.
“This is what I’ve been dreaming would happen,” Maduro said during an event inaugurating a baseball stadium near Caracas. “The entire country repudiates
Juan Guaidó as a puppet of American imperialism.”
The move was immediately condemned by the United States and other nations that consider
Guaidó Venezuela’s rightful leader – recognition that is based on his role as head of congress. Even the leftist government of Argentina, which has been at pains to distance itself from a regional trend to pile on Maduro, questioned the legitimacy of the move.
Hours later, Guaidó – as was expected all along – was re-elected with the support of 100 of the National Assembly’s 167 members in an impromptu session held at the newsroom of El Nacional, the last major opposition newspaper.
Still, the move by Maduro’s allies is another setback for Guaidó, who had been struggling to maintain unity in the opposition coalition after a year of failed efforts to oust the socialist leader. It also sets the stage for another battle for institutional power of the sort Venezuelans have grown used to in recent years.
A critical first test will come on Tuesday, when both Guaidó and his newfound rival, lawmaker Luis Parra, have called for legislative sessions at the same palace where Sunday’s disturbances took place.