History Repeats Itself as US Announces It Recognizes Edmundo González as President-Elect of Venezuela

By Pablo Meriguet – Nov 23, 2024

Blinken’s declaration along with the advance of the BOLIVAR Act in US Congress, could mark the beginning of another US-led campaign to wear down the Maduro government, which will undoubtedly intensify under Trump.

With just two months left before the end of the Biden administration, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the formal recognition of Edmundo González as the legitimate president-elect of Venezuela. In his X account, he wrote “The Venezuelan people spoke resoundingly on July 28 and made Edmundo González the president-elect. Democracy demands respect for the will of the voters.”

Washington, in an attitude that some have labeled as interference, never hid its support for González even before the July 28 elections. Until now, it had never formally recognized the Venezuelan opposition leader, who is now in Spain, as the next president, despite at one point backing the opposition’s claims of victory. This change of attitude does not seem to be a solitary decision of the United States but a coordinated action among several countries.

On November 20, the Italian Prime Minister, the right-wing Giorgia Meloni, also recognized González as the winner of the last elections in the Caribbean country. “We do not recognize the proclaimed victory of Maduro, the result of very non-transparent elections”, said Meloni in a press conference with her counterpart Javier Milei, President of Argentina. In this regard, Meloni added “The crisis that Venezuela is going through is an issue that, for both Italy and Argentina, is particularly important,” confirming the clear interest that extreme right-wing governments have in Venezuela’s internal situation.

This strategy of delegitimization and attempt to erode the international credibility of Venezuelan political institutions was already applied in 2019 when the United States and several countries belonging to its geopolitical orbit recognized Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s president, even going so far as to hand over billions of dollars of Venezuela’s foreign assets, as well as control of CITGO.

The script seems to be repeating as US Congress prepares to legislate tough sanctions against the South American and Caribbean nation. On Monday, November 18, the US House of Representatives passed the BOLIVAR Act which would intensify existing existing sanctions by “prohibiting the US government from contracting with any person that has business operations with the illegitimate government of Nicolás Maduro, as well as any successor government of Venezuela not recognized as legitimate by the United States.”

Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz who introduced the act, stated, “Over the last decade, I’ve fought for tough sanctions against the Maduro regime, robust humanitarian aid, and international pressure to protect human rights and the rule of law in Venezuela. But unless the US divests from shady corporate interests that enable Maduro’s corruption and election theft, we can’t truly say we are committed to the Venezuelan people.” She added, “this bipartisan legislation that will cut off Maduro’s support network and send the clear message that Americans will not tolerate anti-democratic repression—and we certainly won’t subsidize it.” The BOLIVAR Act now heads to the Senate, and if passed, would need approval from the president.

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Caracas repudiates Blinken’s statements
According to official data from Venezuela’s electoral authority, Nicolás Maduro, of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), obtained 51.95% of the valid votes, while González, of the United Democratic Platform, reached 43.18%. Although the opposition and certain international organizations did not recognize the results, the Venezuelan judiciary, after an audit of the results, declared that Maduro was the winner. The controversy went on for several weeks, but the truth is that Maduro is currently in the presidential chair, while González is in Spain.

Venezuelan Secretary of State, Yvan Gil Pinto, harshly repudiated the US recognition of González as alleged president of Venezuela: “The only place you don’t go back from is ridicule…However, Blinken, a confessed enemy of Venezuela, insists on doing it again, now with a Guaidó 2.0 [Edmundo González] supported by fascists and terrorists subordinated to the battered US policy.”

Likewise, Gil Pinto affirmed that during the few days that Blinken will occupy the post of Secretary of State “He should dedicate himself to reflect on his failures, get rid of the imperial and colonial complexes and go write the memoirs of how the Bolivarian Revolution made him bite the dust of defeat, just like his predecessors.”

For his part, Jorge Arreaza, Executive Secretary of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP), said via Telegram “There is a popular saying that goes: man is the only animal that stumbles twice with the same stone. The ruling elite in Washington…for 200 years stumbles and stumbles over the dignity of the Venezuelan people and does not end up accepting its defeat.”

While it was never abandoned, Washington appears to doubling down on its strategy to undermine the Bolivarian Revolution by diplomatically isolating Venezuela and imposing a greater number of economic sanctions to suffocate its economy.

(People Dispatch)