{"id":3821,"date":"2022-01-06T08:24:18","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T12:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/energiesnet.com\/espanol\/?p=3821"},"modified":"2022-01-06T08:24:20","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T12:24:20","slug":"kejal-vyas-wsj-venezuelas-u-s-backed-opposition-frays-as-nicolas-maduro-tightens-grip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/energiesnet.com\/espanol\/kejal-vyas-wsj-venezuelas-u-s-backed-opposition-frays-as-nicolas-maduro-tightens-grip\/","title":{"rendered":"Kejal Vyas\/WSJ -Venezuela\u2019s U.S.-Backed Opposition Frays as Nicol\u00e1s Maduro Tightens Grip"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Juan Guaid\u00f3\u2019s coalition is hit by infighting, with disputes over his power and billions in opposition-controlled assets<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A 2017 protest in Caracas, Venezuela; support for the opposition political alliance has waned.
Photo:Ariana Cubillos\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By KejalVyas\/WSJ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CARACAS
EnergiesNet.com 01 06 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, a coalition of Venezuelan political parties backed by the U.S.<\/a> had grand ambitions to overthrow President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and cut off his financing by seizing some $20 billion in foreign assets<\/a> from his regime and managing them on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Maduro\u2019s grip on power has since tightened. Efforts to restore democracy have stalled. And the political alliance headed by Juan Guaid\u00f3 \u2014whom Washington supports as Venezuela\u2019s legitimate president\u2014is fraying amid disputes<\/a> over how much power he should wield and alleged mismanagement of the state-owned companies the opposition controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawmakers in an opposition-run National Assembly voted late Monday to place sharper limits on Mr. Guaid\u00f3 in his role as the movement\u2019s leader<\/a>, including putting restrictions on the use of money from foreign assets and greatly reducing his diplomatic corps. Many figures in the opposition saw the moves as a sign of widening divisions in the opposition that will strengthen Mr. Maduro further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nicol\u00e1s Maduro arrives at a polling station in Caracas, Venezuela, in November.PHOTO: CAROLINA CABRAL\/BLOOMBERG NEWS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The predicament is a challenge for the Biden administration, as Washington tries to figure out how best to support the opposition, according to people familiar with the matter. Washington has said it would still recognize Mr. Guaid\u00f3 as Venezuela\u2019s president, despite growing pressure from some U.S. businesses and creditors of Venezuela for the administration to re-engage with the Maduro regime and eventually ease economic sanctions, people familiar with the matter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early January 2019, after Mr. Maduro\u2019s re-election that the U.S. called a sham, the Trump administration and scores of countries withdrew recognition of Mr. Maduro and instead claimed Mr. Guaid\u00f3, at the time the head of the National Assembly, as the nation\u2019s legitimate leader. The idea was that Mr. Guaid\u00f3 had legitimacy as the representative of the last democratically elected body in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effort to back Mr. Guaid\u00f3 always faced big limitations in a country where Mr. Maduro maintains control over virtually all levers of power, from the courts to the army. Though the opposition leader can give speeches and meet with supporters, he has no way of passing laws or running the security forces. Meanwhile, Mr. Maduro and his allies created their own parallel legislative bodies to pass laws, and ignored the National Assembly. Most of its leading members went into exile, and the body\u2019s meetings are now held via Zoom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the opposition does have some real power, including control of overseas embassies and a range of assets abroad, including gold bullion at the Bank of England, Houston-based Citgo Petroleum Corp, and a large fertilizer producer in Colombia, Mon\u00f3meros Colombo Venezolanos SA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what had started as a pro-democracy movement using street protests, critics say, has turned into an international bureaucracy of 1,600 workers with little popular support or accountability within Venezuela, even as they operate state-owned companies abroad valued in the billions of dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Guaid\u00f3 had approval ratings of about 15% in an October poll by the Caracas pollster, Datanalisis, about the same as Mr. Maduro. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that people think Guaid\u00f3 is a bad guy,\u201d said Datanalisis director Luis Vicente Le\u00f3n. \u201cIt means that you didn\u2019t achieve the goals that you promised and for which the people supported you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data from an ad-hoc central bank board created by Mr. Guaid\u00f3 show that his administration used $130 million from a so-called Fund for the Liberation of Venezuela since July 2020 to pay activists, opposition lawmakers and envoys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Former opposition envoy Julio Borges, facing camera at a New York meeting in 2019, called in December for the dissolution of the interim government.PHOTO: MICHAEL NAGLE\/SHUTTERSTOCK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Last month, senior opposition leader Julio Borges resigned from his post as the opposition\u2019s top envoy and said the interim government should be dissolved. From exile in Colombia, Mr. Borges called the movement\u2019s failure to topple Mr. Maduro an embarrassment and said the opposition was deviating from its goal of regime change by fighting over foreign assets. Bondholders and foreign companies want to seize Citgo as compensation for billions of unpaid debts owed by Mr. Maduro\u2019s government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allegations of mismanagement by the opposition of the state-run fertilizer plant based in Colombia, Mon\u00f3meros, which is flirting with bankruptcy, have further soured the mood.https:\/\/tpc.googlesyndication.com\/safeframe\/1-0-38\/html\/container.html<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, support has waned for the opposition, both abroad and inside Venezuela. Of the nearly 60 countries that had recognized Mr. Guaid\u00f3 as president in 2019, only the U.S. and a handful continue to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Juan Guaid\u00f3 speaks in Caracas, Venezuela, after regional and local elections in November.
Photo:Leonardo Fernandez Viloria\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While many U.S. allies still deem Mr. Maduro\u2019s rule as illegitimate, some countries have decided to work with the regime to facilitate trade and diplomacy. The European Union last year stopped calling Mr. Guaid\u00f3 \u201cinterim president\u201d and now considers him \u201ca privileged interlocutor\u201d for negotiations with the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Financial creditors and U.S. businesses with interests in Venezuela have lobbied the Biden administration to eventually ease sanctions, people familiar with the matter said. Current U.S. policy has largely locked American oil businesses out of Venezuela and prohibited investors from negotiating over billions owed by the bankrupt regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden administration officials have heard discussions about whether foreign assets could be placed in trust, effectively taking Citgo out of Mr. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s hands without exposing it to creditors, according to people familiar with the discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jos\u00e9 Ignacio Hernandez, a public-policy professor who designed much of Mr. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s asset-protection strategy, argues that any changes to the U.S.\u2019s recognition of Mr. Guaid\u00f3 would allow the regime to reclaim rights to the assets. That is because Mr. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s lawyers in recent years have painstakingly argued in U.S. and U.K. courts that they are the legitimate leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt would be like going back to zero, something that we cannot afford,\u201d said Mr. Hernandez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Venezuela is an unusual situation in international battles with creditors, with two different governments claiming legitimacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the U.S. worked with the U.N. Security Council to place blanket bans on creditors filing claims against the American-backed transitional government. No such multilateral mechanism has been established for Venezuelan assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while the U.S. has blocked international creditors from seizing Venezuelan assets, the U.S. Treasury has left open the possibility of granting such requests in the future if policy toward Venezuela were to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opposition\u2019s troubles and infighting have been on display over the Colombia-based fertilizers producer, Mon\u00f3meros. Since 2019, the four main political parties that made up Mr. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s coalition fought to name their own company board members, seeking to control lucrative procurement positions in the firm, current and former executives at Mon\u00f3meros said. The arrangement, they said, brought political battles into the company boardroom, hampering its ability to function and hire personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Guaid\u00f3 denied wrongdoing in the management of Mon\u00f3meros. He has called for an investigation into alleged graft and said he wants a wholesale restructuring of the estimated $500 million company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In late October, a special five-member investigative commission hired by the National Assembly alleged in a 51-page report that Mon\u00f3meros executives, some of whom had been appointed by Mr. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s party, conspired with their main supplier, Connecticut-based chemicals company Nitron Group, to burden the fertilizer plant with unpayable debt and pave the way for Nitron to take it over in an arrangement that the report called \u201cloan to own.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are elements that permit us to reasonably believe that people who fulfilled managerial functions participated in a scheme for the hostile takeover of Mon\u00f3meros,\u201d the investigative committee\u2019s report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nitron didn\u2019t respond to an email with detailed questions on the allegations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opposition activists called the alleged mishandling of Mon\u00f3meros a stain on the Guaid\u00f3 movement\u2019s efforts to show its international supporters that it has the capacity to administer a sprawling bureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe opposition can\u2019t even balance a checkbook, let alone govern a country,\u201d said Juan Cruz, a former adviser to the Trump White House on Venezuela policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Guaid\u00f3 said his government is committed to ensuring that the Venezuelan state doesn\u2019t lose control of its overseas assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Ginette Gonzalez and Andrew Scurria contributed to this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By KejalVyas from The Wall Street Journal -WSJ
wsj.com<\/a> 01 04 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juan Guaid\u00f3\u2019s coalition is hit by infighting, with disputes over his power and billions in opposition-controlled assets By KejalVyas\/WSJ CARACASEnergiesNet.com 01 06 2022 In 2019, a coalition of Venezuelan political parties backed by the U.S. had grand ambitions to overthrow President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and cut off his financing by seizing some $20 billion in foreign assets from his regime …<\/p>\n

Kejal Vyas\/WSJ -Venezuela\u2019s U.S.-Backed Opposition Frays as Nicol\u00e1s Maduro Tightens Grip<\/span> Leer m\u00e1s »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t