[rad-green] Latest Episode in Juan Guaidó’ s Venezuela Regime-Change Reality Show

*https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/11/latest-episode-in-juan-guaidos-venezuela-regime-change-reality-show/
<https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/11/latest-episode-in-juan-guaidos-venezuela-regime-change-reality-show/>*


*Consortium News          January 11, 2020*

Latest Episode in Juan Guaidó’s Venezuela Regime-Change Reality Show

*Leonardo Flores reports on a farcical scene that was just the latest
chapter in an absurdly bungled coup attempt. *
*By Leonardo Flores*
*The Grayzone
<https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/08/final-episode-juan-guaido-surreal-regime-change-reality-show/>*
*Fistfights and screaming matches broke out at Venezuela’s National
Assembly on Jan. 5, when the legislative body was scheduled to elect its
leader. But the melee was not what the corporate U.S. media has portrayed
it as. *The fights weren’t between the Chavistas who support the Bolivarian
Revolution and  President Nicolás Maduro
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/06/interview-venezuelan-president-nicolas-maduro/>
on
one side and opposition members on the other, but rather between competing
members of the opposition itself.

The opposition imploded because Juan Guaidó
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/>
, the former president of the National Assembly and self-declared “interim
president” of the country, lost his campaign to be reelected as head of the
legislature.

The Venezuelan opposition is in a state of disaster — as it has been since
former President Hugo Chávez’s first election in 1998. It’s a loose and
ever-changing coalition of around a dozen political parties, with differing
ideologies, strategies, and constituencies.

The far right, which is comprised mainly of the Voluntad Popularand Primero
Justicia  parties, is filled with people who have been receiving financial
and logistical support from the United States
<https://fair.org/home/us-administrations-have-been-intervening-in-venezuela-since-at-least-the-early-2000s/>
 for the past 20 years.

In the 2002 coup against then President Chávez, the far right briefly took
over, and excluded the more moderate opposition from positions of power.
The moderates learned the wrong lesson: instead of challenging the
U.S.-backed right, it caved to them, acceding to their plans of regime
change and undemocratic maneuvers.

But an important split occurred between the moderates and the extremists
during the presidential elections in May 2018. The moderates ignored the
far right’s calls for a boycott and won 3 million votes in the presidential
elections, out of a voting electorate of around 15 million people (with
approximately 20 million eligible voters).

In September 2019, these moderate opposition figures sat down with the
Maduro administration and came to a wide-ranging agreement
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14666> that included a bipartisan
rejection of U.S. sanctions and the appointment of new members of the
National Electoral Council.

Between them, the moderates and Chavistas now represent more than 9 million
votes, accounting for a full 60 percent of likely voters and 45 percent of
eligible voters. This dialogue between two important sectors of Venezuela
electoral politics helps explain why September, October, and November were
easily the most stable three months for Venezuela in the past year. The
dialogue led directly to the events of Jan. 5 in Caracas.

*Divided Opposition Boots Out Guaidó*

Juan Guaidó, of the far-right Voluntad Popular party, has served as head of
the National Assembly since January 2019. It is this position that he and
the United States used to justify proclaiming him supposed “president” of
the country. But on Jan. 5, he was facing a tough reelection bid.

As both sides traded unsubstantiated claims of influence peddling, it
became clear early in the day that the moderate opposition would join
forces with Chavismo to replace Guaidó.

With 150 of 165 members present, the National Assembly elected Luis Parra
as its new president. Parra, of the right-wing opposition party Primero
Justicia, was elected with 81 votes. Franklin Duarte of the conservative
Christian party COPEI (one of Venezuela’s two main political parties prior
to the revolution) was elected vice president of the assembly.

José Gregorio Goyo Noriega, of Guaidó’s own Voluntad Popularparty, was
elected as the National Assembly’s second vice president. And Negal Morales
of the neoliberal Acción Democrática (the other pre-revolution major party)
was elected secretary of the legislative body.

All four of these parties are firmly in the opposition, belying claims that
President Maduro somehow took over the legislature.

At least 30 moderate opposition members joined Chavistas in electing two
people from far-right parties to the highest posts in the National
Assembly. Venezuela is a complicated country, with its own logic that
defies sense, much like its economy. This maneuver by Chavismo and the
moderates is the next step toward breaking a political deadlock that has
paralyzed the country since 2016.

Primero Justicia best exemplifies the rifts within the opposition, as it is
probably the most divided political party in the country. It contains
Parra, who has participated in dialogue with the government. In a press
conference after being sworn in <https://youtu.be/AVY6uJM5xE8>, he said “we
[the opposition] are no longer hooked on confrontation, our first and great
challenge is to end confrontation… we’re going to start a path of
depolarization of the country and the legislature.”

This party also contains the notoriously intransigent Julio Borges, who
referred to Venezuelan migration as a plague
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrGgiUw8WAE> (feeding into the region’s
rampant, and in some instances, state-sponsored
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14674>, anti-Venezuelan xenophobia).
Borges has also called for a U.S. military option
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/12/venezuela-trump-nicolas-maduro-military-option>
to
remove Maduro.

Primero Justicia’s divisions reflect those that have split the opposition
as a whole: a wing that wants coexistence versus another that demands total
conquest.

*Final Surreal Episode?*

As it became clear that he was about to lose his reelection, the increasingly
farcical <https://twitter.com/i/status/1194270605153099776> Guaidó put on
the latest episode of his parallel reality show. He convinced some of
the world’s
most
<https://fair.org/home/facts-dont-interfere-with-propaganda-blitz-against-venezuelas-elected-president/>
 shameless journalists
<https://fair.org/home/study-linking-us-sanctions-to-venezuelan-deaths-buried-by-reuters-for-over-a-month/>
that
he was physically barred from entering the National Assembly by security
forces. The video evidence shows otherwise
<https://twitter.com/OrlenysOV/status/1213955849535807490>.

Guaidó refused to enter the premises if he wasn’t permitted to bring in 11
former members of the National Assembly. These 11 range from members who
were ruled ineligible to serve in the legislature by Venezuela’s Supreme
Court due to an alleged vote-buying scheme in their elections, to members
who had their parliamentary immunity stripped for having participated in
the April 30, 2019, attempted uprising – the one in which the Guaidó
faction courageously took over an exit ramp
<https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.debate.com.mx%2Fexport%2Fsites%2Fdebate%2Fimg%2F2019%2F04%2F30%2Fsoldados_toman_posiciones_en_un_paso_elevado_prxximo_a_la_base_axrea_de_la_carlotax_en_caracasx_venezuelax_el_30_de_abril_de_2019.jpeg_1523629909.jpeg&f=1&nofb=1>
.

The focus on the 11 former legislators who weren’t allowed to enter ignores
the nearly 100 opposition legislators who did enter and were present for
the vote.

After losing, the Guaidó spectacle continued. He decided to create a
parallel congress to go with his parallel presidency — presumably with the
upcoming blessing of the parallel Supreme Court. (Keep in mind this “court”
operates out of Miami, and is experiencing the same internal meltdown as
the rest of the opposition.)

The media battle – the disinformation campaign and its counter-campaign –
is now in full swing. According to Parra, there was a quorum and there was
a vote, making his ascendance to the head of the National Assembly totally
legitimate. The Guaidó faction, however, claims neither happened.

Hours after Parra’s swearing in, Guaidó’s parallel parliament was sworn in
at the offices of a pro-opposition newspaper. He claims to have been
reelected in the congress with 100 votes.

The confusion surrounding who is and isn’t a member of the National
Assembly, as well as technical issues regarding alternate legislators, will
suffice to convince most Democrats in Congress, and some of those running
for the presidential nomination
<https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1214208409140117504?s=19>, to not
question Guaidó and the Trump administration’s Venezuela policy.

The levels of bipartisan support for this policy in the U.S. would be
absurd if they weren’t so deadly
<http://cepr.net/publications/reports/economic-sanctions-as-collective-punishment-the-case-of-venezuela>
.

*Guaidó’s Scandals Erupt*

Despite the pain caused by the U.S. policy of hybrid war
<https://www.thetricontinental.org/dossier-17-venezuela-and-hybrid-wars-in-latin-america/>,
Venezuela has, against all odds, started to recover economically.

Oil production is up <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14744>; oil income
is up <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ldbOsXyWno>; a tariff on goods from
the United States was lifted (flooding the country with products like
Nutella that used to be rare treasures just six months ago); and
Venezuela’s digital currency, the Petro, was successfully introduced to the
public
<https://lubrio.blogspot.com/2019/12/petro-aguinaldo-dudas-traki-petroapp.html>
.

What’s more, the social safety net has been strengthened through the
government’s CLAP food distribution program, which now reaches 7 million
families every month
<http://www.vicepresidencia.gob.ve/especial-clap-bandera-de-victoria-alimentaria-en-latinoamerica/>
.

The Great Housing Mission is another success story, as it marked the
construction of the 3 millionth home
<https://mronline.org/2020/01/02/social-program-meets-goal-delivers-3-million-homes/>
for
poor and working-class Venezuelans. Using an estimate of four people per
household, which is low for many Venezuelans, that means that at least 12
million people out of a population of 30 million live in quality,
low-to-no-cost housing.

Simple math shows that nearly twice as many Venezuelans live in
government-built homes than those who vote for Chavismo. This is a huge
sector of the population that has directly benefited from government
programs, that doesn’t exclusively blame President Maduro for its
difficulties, and that is turned off by extremist positions.

Without these votes, the opposition cannot win elections unless they are
rigged. These are the voters the moderate opposition is counting on, and
it’s not inconceivable that the moderates will become a majority within the
opposition when the 2020 legislative elections are held.

Guaidó’s star has faded, and although no one knew it at the time, it was
already burning out by Feb. 23, 2019, when he tried to forcibly deliver
humanitarian aid from Colombia through the Venezuelan border.

In the past months, the public has also learned how Guaidó entered Colombia
with the help of Los Rastrojos
<https://www.codepink.org/the_venezuelan_opposition_s_paramilitary_gambit>,
a nefarious paramilitary drug cartel.

During the Feb. 23 coup attempt, Guaidó’s supporters burned their own aid
trucks
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/02/24/burning-aid-colombia-venezuela-bridge/> (a
fact *The New York Times *admitted weeks after the fact, long after *The
Grayzone’s *Max Blumenthal exposed it
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/02/24/burning-aid-colombia-venezuela-bridge/>
).

Further reporting revealed that the humanitarian aid funding provided to
the U.S.-backed opposition was embezzled by Guaidó’s “appointees”
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/17/from-coup-leaders-to-con-artistry-juan-guaidos-gang-exposed-for-massive-humanitarian-aid-fraud/>
in
Colombia.

The scandal over the humanitarian aid theft blew up in Venezuela in late
2019, further splintering the opposition. It was the perfect excuse to get
rid of Juan Guaidó after an array of miserable failures and his clear
commitment
to undemocratic methods
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/>
.

There was the failed uprising of April 30, several plots aimed at
destabilization that the government’s security services foiled, and 2019’s
last act of desperation: an attack on military bases in southern Venezuela
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Brazil-Complicit-in-Attacks-on-Venezuela-Military-Base-O-Globo-20200102-0010.html>,
which was coordinated with far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro
<https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/ataque-quartel-por-militares-que-se-refugiaram-no-brasil-era-parte-de-plano-maior-contra-maduro-24165689?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=compartilhar>
, according to the newspaper *O Globo*.

Guaidó started 2019 by establishing a parallel yet powerless presidency. He
started 2020 by creating a parallel congress. It’s unlikely this body will
be able to do anything other than alienate its own base.

Yet, predictably, the U.S. State Department has been using the same
language as Guaidó, and offered his parallel parliament immediate
recognition.
*Trump’s Venezuela Policy at Dead End*

Trump and the White House have yet to weigh in as of Jan. 6 — apparently
too busy escalating the conflict with Iran
<https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/03/us-war-iran-iraq-rania-khalek/>. Although
Vice President Pence did congratulate Guaidó on “his re-election as interim
president <https://twitter.com/Mike_Pence/status/1214301944765915136?s=19>.”
But this wasn’t at all what happened, even in the parallel congress.

It is unclear if the State Department and the president are even on the
same page in regards to Venezuela. Trump’s frustration with the policy is
building after being assured that removing Maduro would be an easy win.
That could help explain why Erik Prince, of Blackwater fame and known
associate of Trump, held backchannel discussions in Venezuela with Vice
President Delcy Rodríguez
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/13/venezuela-blackwater-founder-erik-prince-delcy-rodriguez>
.

Prince — who earlier in 2019 pitched a plan to raise a mercenary army to
overthrow Maduro — was in Venezuela, according to *Bloomberg*
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-13/erik-prince-held-secret-talks-in-caracas-with-maduro-s-no-2>,
to negotiate the release of a group of Venezuelan-Americans who were in
jail pending a corruption trial. A more plausible explanation credits
Argentina’s new President Alberto Fernández
<https://www.bnamericas.com/en/features/will-argentina-become-a-us-venezuela-intermediary>
for
their partial release.

The Prince meeting likely took place with Trump’s knowledge, and may have
been related to holders of Venezuelan bonds and international finance
<http://la-tabla.blogspot.com/2019/12/supuesta-o-real-reunion-con-erik-prince.html?m=1>
. These bondholders, who prior to the Trump administration’s sanctions were
routinely paid on time by the Maduro government, are angry that they can’t
collect — and that their best chance to collect, through profits from
Venezuela’s state-owned refinery Citgo, might be liquidated by the Guaidó
faction
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/09/03/the-citgo-conspiracy-opposition-figures-accuse-guaido-officials-of-scam-to-liquidate-venezuelas-most-prized-international-asset/>
.

The State Department downplayed Prince’s visit and reacted poorly, with unnamed
officials accusing Prince of violating U.S. sanctions
<https://thehill.com/policy/international/476300-us-officials-say-erik-prince-may-have-violated-venezuela-sanctions>
.

This points to strong differences of opinions regarding US policy toward
Venezuela and conflicts between various interest groups, one of which
appears to want negotiations between the two governments. The prospect of
negotiations improved with the firing of John Bolton
<https://thegrayzone.com/2018/03/26/neocon-john-bolton-hawkish-us-national-security-adviser/>
in
September, as well as by the seeming disconnect between the White House and
State Department.

But all of this is complicated by the fact that Trump is polling well in
Florida
<https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2019/12/31/poll-biden-has-edge-over-trump-in-florida-1239691>,
and any change in Venezuela policy would be certain to upset the hardline
right-wing Venezuelan and Cuban regime-change lobbies that hold sway in the
state.

But with Trump ramping up his maximum-pressure policy on Iran and bringing
the region closer to war than at any time since 2003, he has spiked global
oil prices, and thereby risked a political price at home.

This leaves the possibility that the White House might pivot to dialogue in
Venezuela and relieve sanctions to spur its oil production and soften the
shock that will be caused by an escalation of the U.S.-Iran conflict.

The best case scenario for Venezuela involves a lifting of the sanctions.
But another outcome seems more probable: business as usual until after the
U.S. presidential election, at which point the Juan Guaidó parallel reality
show may finally draw to a close.

*Leonardo Flores is a Latin American policy expert and campaigner with
**CODEPINK
<https://www.codepink.org/>.*

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