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Juan Guaido leader of venezuelan opposition an d recognize by the U.S. and other countries as Venezuela\u2019s
legitimate president since January 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yuri Cortez\/AFP
Juan Guaido leader of venezuelan opposition an d recognize by the U.S. and other countries as Venezuela\u2019s
legitimate president since January 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– Major faction in coalition led by Juan Guaid\u00f3 withdraws and calls for new leadership after failure to unseat strongman Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Kejal Vyas \/ WSJ<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CARACAS
Petroleumworld 12 07 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The political movement the U.S. has backed in Venezuela to challenge the country\u2019s authoritarian government is on the verge of breaking up after a major faction announced its withdrawal on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Julio Borges, a leading figure in the antiregime coalition, called for an end to the leadership of Juan Guaid\u00f3, whom the U.S. and dozens of allies have backed as Venezuela\u2019s legitimate president since January 2019 in a strategy to remove strongman President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. Until now, Mr. Guaid\u00f3 has been leader of a movement that calls itself an interim government, complete with a bureaucracy and diplomats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe notion of the interim government has to disappear,\u201d said Mr. Borges in a virtual news conference from his exile in Bogot\u00e1, Colombia, adding that he is resigning as Mr. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s chief foreign diplomat. \u201cWe can\u2019t continue with this bureaucracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was no immediate comment from spokesmen for Mr. Guaid\u00f3 or from James Story, the Colombia-based U.S. ambassador to Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Borges said the so-called interim government led by Mr. Guaid\u00f3 has lost legitimacy with average Venezuelans, an assertion backed by polling. He said it is mired in allegations of having mishandled billions of dollars in Venezuelan state assets in the U.S. and Colombia that came under the control of Mr. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s aides after foreign governments deemed Mr. Maduro\u2019s rule illegitimate.
A new opposition movement needs to be formed with a clearer strategy over how to restore democracy, Mr. Borges said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t be an interim government that wants to perpetually stay in power and is turning into part of the problem, rather than the solution,\u201d Mr. Borges said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The withdrawal of Mr. Borges and his party, Justice First, is a blow to the opposition coalition and raises questions over whether the Biden administration will continue to back Mr. Guaid\u00f3 after his term ends Jan. 5, which U.S. policy makers had previously said wouldn\u2019t mean a cutoff in support, said Geoff Ramsey, who tracks Venezuela at the policy research group, the Washington Office on Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a reckoning moment for the opposition,\u201d said Mr. Ramsey. \u201cWe are seeing an acceptance in the opposition that they need to go back to the drawing board and connect with the population. They need to go back to being a social movement rather than an international bureaucracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite street protests, efforts to spark senior military officers to mutiny and U.S. sanctions on Venezuela\u2019s oil industry, the Guaid\u00f3-led movement failed to remove Mr. Maduro, whose regime clung to power with support from Russia and China.
Meanwhile, unfulfilled promises crushed Mr. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s approval rating to about 15%, statistically tied with Mr. Maduro in an October poll by Datanalisis. Last month, the regime won a majority of local and state elections that for the first time in four years included the participation of most of the opposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The breakup was announced days after Brian A. Nichols, the U.S. State Department\u2019s assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, spoke with Mr. Guaid\u00f3 and reiterated Washington\u2019s commitment to his movement. \u201cWe support the interim government\u2019s important work to forge a path to democracy and end Venezuela\u2019s humanitarian crisis,\u201d Mr. Nichols wrote in a Twitter post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Venezuela\u2019s fractious opposition has long differed over strategies to challenge Mr. Maduro, political parties had largely stuck together since the U.S. backed their plan to name Mr. Guaid\u00f3 as interim president nearly three years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But a major breaking point has been the opposition\u2019s management of more than $10 billion in Venezuelan state assets that the interim government was supposed to safeguard from Mr. Maduro, as well as from foreign creditors seeking to take over assets as compensation for billions of dollars owed by the bankrupt regime in Caracas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The assets include the U.S.-based oil refiner Citgo Petroleum Corp. as well as more than $1 billion in gold bullion sitting at the Bank of England. Financial troubles at another Venezuelan state-owned firm, a Colombia-based fertilizer plant called Mon\u00f3meros Colombo Venezolanos SA, has also led to opposition infighting, said people familiar with the situation at that company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In October, a panel of opposition lawmakers alleged in a report that the company\u2019s directors\u2014some of them from Mr. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s party\u2014had sought to loot the company for personal gain. Mr. Guaid\u00f3 denied he had any ties to the directors and called for a wholesale restructuring of Mon\u00f3meros. Macario Gonzalez, who leads an audit commission under Mr. Guaid\u00f3 that is investigating allegations of wrongdoing at the company, called the report incomplete and part of an effort to smear the interim government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Guaid\u00f3 and his aides have said that the U.S. should continue to recognize the interim government into next year because otherwise Mr. Maduro might regain control over the foreign assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Borges disagreed. \u201cThe fact that the opposition is spending its time discussing the handling of the assets instead of how to get rid of Maduro is a shame,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can\u2019t continue like this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Borges has proposed removing political operatives from managing the foreign assets, with an independent trust undertaking the role. First Justice has also played a leading role in moving Venezuela\u2019s opposition away from confronting Mr. Maduro to negotiating concessions to ensure free and fair presidential elections in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Biden administration has said that if the regime makes far-reaching, irreversible concessions that help lead to the restoration of democracy, then Washington would lift financial and oil-sector sanctions that have choked off Venezuela\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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By Kejal Vyas from The Wall Street Journal -WSJ<\/p>\n\n\n\n