San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Venezuela reformers weigh ousting leader
CARACAS, Venezuela — Juan Guaidó swept to international renown in 2019 during a euphoric antigovernment protest when he declared Venezuela’s authoritarian president an illegitimate ruler and himself the interim leader.
It was a major and bold move backed by the United States and dozens of other nations and the most serious threat to President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian government.
But last week, with Maduro still firmly in control of the country, it seemed Guaidó’s mandate might be nearing its end. In balloting Thursday held by the opposition legislature that exists parallel to Maduro’s government, Guaidó’s own colleagues voted overwhelmingly to end his interim government.
The decision is not final: A second session scheduled for this Thursday will have to confirm it, although analysts believe the initial vote will likely stand. But it was the clearest sign yet that most of the Venezuelan opposition believes that Guaidó cannot achieve their stated goal — Maduro’s ouster and the restoration of democracy — and that they must pursue a different strategy.
It was also a blow to the United States, which threw its support steadfastly behind Guaidó and continues to refer to him as the country’s interim president, even as other nations have backed away from that recognition.
A total of 72 representatives voted to eliminate the
interim government, while 24 voted to keep it and nine voted to abstain.
In a message to the public, the three opposition political parties supporting the end of the interim government said the “political process” that began four years ago with the recognition of Guaidó as president “is not perceived as an option for real political change.”
The strategy in place under Guaidó “has not reached the expected liberation objectives and the country demands new paths that lead us toward democracy,” the message continued.
Venezuela has been in the grips of an economic, political and humanitarian crisis since 2014, led by a government claiming socialist ideals that has gutted the country’s democratic institutions and left much of the country impoverished. Seven million people, one-quarter of the population, have fled in recent years, with a growing number of them headed toward the United States.
In 2019, Guaidó, a student activist turned legislator, took the helm of the country’s legislature, then the last major institution
in the country controlled by the opposition. Amid large-scale protests against the Maduro government, he invoked an article of the constitution that transfers power to the head of the National Assembly if the presidency becomes vacant.
A 2018 election won by Maduro had already been declared a sham by the United States, the European Union, the Organization of American States and others, and Guaidó used that to claim that the president’s mandate was illegitimate.
“The opposition is taking stock of where it stands and realizing that the interim government experiment didn’t pan out,” said Geoff Ramsey, the director for Venezuela at WOLA, a Washingtonbased advocacy organization.
He added that the interim government has increasingly become less relevant in Caracas, the capital, and more relevant in Washington. “I think over time the interim government outlived its usefulness and that’s why we’re seeing the Venezuelan opposition looking for new ways to restructure itself,” he said.