Venezuela’s opposition weakened when Biden took office

Maduro has said publicly that his government is willing to commit to the US, even though past efforts to negotiate a dialogue have failed.

An official from the president-elect’s transition team, Joe Biden, said he had no plans to negotiate with Mr. Maduro, adding that he had no communications with the Venezuelan regime.

“President-elect Biden has been clear throughout the campaign and during the transition that he believes Maduro is a dictator and that the Biden administration will stand by the Venezuelan people and their call for the restoration of democracy through free elections and fair, ”the official said. dit.

The United States, the official added, will try to rebuild multilateral pressure on Mr. Maduro, demand the release of political prisoners, implement sanctions against Venezuelan officials guilty of corruption and human rights abuses, and grant temporary protection status to Venezuelans. living in the country. WE

As Mr. Maduro tightens control of Congress, the country’s opposition will soon have it again. According to opposition activists, some opposition lawmakers who are close to Mr. Guaidó plan to flee the country, for fear of imprisonment if they remain in Venezuela. With no power or control over the territory, what Mr. Guaidó and his team call interim government is now little more than a virtual entity, making pro-democracy statements through social media and Zoom. The Trump administration has said it still considers Mr. Guaidó the only democratically elected leader in Venezuela.

With many of the opposition leaders outside Venezuela, Mr. Guaidó is increasingly isolated, living in a small apartment in Caracas with his wife and young daughter and wondering if the secret police will arrest him.

As Mr. Biden prepares to be sworn in as president of the United States on January 20, Venezuelan opposition leaders said they are moving away from strategies to drive a revolt to force Mr. Maduro to power. Instead, they said they would lean more toward how to alleviate the lack of food and medicine in a country in a state of economic calamity. One-third of Venezuelans cannot access three meals a day, according to the UN World Food Program. Up to half suffer daily power outages while struggling to overcome annual inflation close to 12,000%, according to Caracas business consultancy Ecoanalítica.

Since the United States first recognized Mr. Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president in January 2019, Washington has imposed financial and oil sanctions and accumulated international support for a move to overthrow Mr. Maduro. This effort has failed.

Now many opposition activists, as well as former advisers to President Trump, say changes are needed.

“The whole scheme of Guaidó’s interim government probably survived his life,” said Juan Cruz, who previously advised the White House on Venezuela’s policy. He said the US must reconsider its broad sanctions, targeting state-owned companies and figures accused of corruption and human rights abuses.

“January represents a new day for many players: the opposition, the U.S. administration and even the regime,” Cruz said.

In a recent video address on Twitter, Mr. Guaidó tried to place confidence in his movement by assuring that it is unified and would lead the country to free elections. “The dictatorship will not leave willingly and that is why we must let them go,” he said.

He called on supporters to demonstrate in the streets on Tuesday as Mr Maduro’s allies take seats in the National Assembly. He also urged Venezuelan envoys operating in other countries to pressure host nations to increase pressure on Mr. Maduro.

But little else he proposed. And in Venezuela, the economic downturn and imprisonment have worried most Venezuelans about access to scarce running water and fuel instead of thinking about protests.

“You have lost the ability to mobilize people,” said Luis Vicente León, a political analyst who runs Caracas ’electoral firm Datanálisis. “Today there is no one pressuring Maduro in Venezuela, no political negotiations, no electoral participation or protests. The result is the complete pulverization of the opposition.”

In a recent poll, Datanálisis found that only 25% of respondents said they had hopes for a democratic transition in the country. Ecoanalítica estimates that the economy contracted by 23% in 2020 after shrinking by 40% a year earlier.

Despair in the country is expected to increase the outflow of desperate Venezuelans, which now totals five million. The Organization of American States estimates that the number of Venezuelan immigrants could increase to seven million by the end of 2021, more than the number of Syrians who have fled the country’s brutal war.

Political confrontation makes it difficult to find solutions to the humanitarian crisis. Opposition lawmakers allied with Mr. Guaidó recently passed a resolution on a Zoom video conference calling for them to remain in office after Tuesday, when their five-year terms in Congress ended. They argued that the legislative elections Maduro held last month were illegitimate, as were the US and many other countries.

Maduro said in a recent speech that he would crack down on lawmakers trying to extend his term. “I will not be afraid to act fiercely to enforce the law,” the leftist leader shouted in the televised speech, flanked by the military high command.

But Mr. Guaidó also faces cracks within his own movement. Acció Democràtica, one of the main political parties in the opposition coalition, abstained in a vote to keep Guaidó as head of the assembly. Some lawmakers said they have lost faith in their team.

Oscar Ronderos, a Democratic Action legislator, described the current opposition movement as “a provisional government that does not exist, in a National Assembly that serves no one.”

“It makes very little sense to continue” the movement led by Guaidó after January 5, he said.

According to opposition lawmakers, the movement’s internal discord could further damage its credibility, especially among European Union countries advocating negotiations with the regime to allow humanitarian aid and subsequently an agreement on free elections.

In recent weeks, the Maduro regime has shown its repression by arbitrarily arresting the directors of organizations that provide food to poor Venezuelans and sentencing six former Citgo executives to long prison terms. The U.S. government has said executives (five of whom are U.S. citizens) are being unfairly detained.

“Instead of fostering trust, it’s eroding trust” for negotiation, Cruz said.

Julio Borges, who has been the top diplomat in Guaidó’s movement since exile in Colombia, said he hopes the United States and its allies cannot be easy for Maduro.

“The most important thing for the democratic struggle in Venezuela is that Maduro still cannot stabilize the country or increase its popularity,” Borges said.

—Ginette González in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this article.

Write to Kejal Vyas to [email protected]