After the presidentâs change of heart on Venezuela, and the waning of Juan GuaidĂł and his party, the entire Washington political establishment have a lot of explaining to do, says Steve Ellner.
By Steve Ellner – Jun 25, 2020
After nearly a year and a half of all-out efforts at regime change in Venezuela which took a major toll on the Venezuelan people, Donald Trump now tells the world he was never big on the strategy in the first place. On Friday, the U.S. president appeared to shove the blame onto advisers, and added âI think that I wasnât necessarily in favorâ of the policy of recognizing Juan GuaidĂł as president, but âI was OK with it.â
Trumpâs statements made it seem as if GuaidĂłâs only sin was that he did not manage to seize power. This might-makes-right mindset belies what is happening on the ground in Venezuela which is much more complicated than just one leaderâs approval rating. It also ignores the horrendous suffering of the Venezuelan people due to crippling sanctions imposed in August 2019, the result of a foreign policy decision that Trump now brushes off as a simple mistake.
A price is being paid even by those in Washington who are singularly concerned with U.S. prestige. The real story is that Washington placed all its faith in an untested leader of a radical, somewhat fringe, party; that strong resentment against the U.S. is now being expressed among Venezuelan leaders and voters who previously thought differently; and that with Trumpâs recent statements, U.S. credibility sinks to an all-time low.
The latest news on Trumpâs change of heart requires an analysis of the sea of change that has occurred politically in Venezuela. Such an analysis is much needed because Trumpâs statement is unexplainable for those whose only source of information on Venezuela is the mainstream media. The analysis is also urgent because this week the White House is walking back Trumpâs statement at the same time that Joe Biden is opposing any change in policy.
In spite of these words in favor of staying the course, events have shown that our man in Venezuela, Juan GuaidĂł, has proved to be adept at (in the words of Bloomberg News) âdiplomatic grandstandingâ but completely lacking in political realism.
GuaidĂłâs Recent Botches, One After Another
The day before Trumpâs statements, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy RodrĂguez released several audios pertaining to the oil-giant CITGO which showed how incompetent or corrupt â or both â the U.S.-backed parallel government of GuaidĂł is.
In February, GuaidĂł named JosĂ© Ignacio HernĂĄndez as âspecial attorney,â even though he had formerly represented the Canadian mining company Crystallex in a successful attempt to convince U.S. courts that the Venezuelan governmentâs debt to the company entitled it to partial ownership of CITGO.
Vice President RodrĂguez presented evidence to demonstrate that HernĂĄndez is now working for ConocoPhillips, which is also trying to get its hands on CITGO. On May 28, a court in Delaware gave the greenlight to proceed with the sale of CITGO in order to compensate Crystallex. The decision was a blow not only to the Venezuelan nation but also the GuaidĂł âgovernment,â which the Trump administration had recognized as CITGOâs legitimate owner. RodrĂguezâs audios showed how little HernĂĄndez was representing GuaidĂł and company. Just hours later, HernĂĄndez announced his resignation.
The CITGO scandal is just the latest in a series of blunders and fiascos which have discredited Guaidó. Last year, the pro-opposition pollster Luis Vicente León reported that trust in Guaidó had plunged from 63 percent at the outset of his initial regime change schemes in January to 40 percent. With the coronavirus crisis underway, another prominent polling firm Hinterlaces, which has displayed greater sympathy for the government, reported that 85 percent of Venezuelans approved the way Maduro was handling the pandemic and 81 percent favored government-opposition negotiations, which Maduro supports and Guaidó has largely opposed.
Then in May came the botched military coastal incursion from Colombia with the aim of capturing Maduro, a venture that was backed by GuaidĂł and ended up further eroding trust in him. GuaidĂł pledged $213 million to the scheme, thus raising questions regarding the source of the money and how it is being administered.
Foes of GuaidĂł in the Opposition
Another incident which called to question the handling of vast amounts of cash was GuaidĂłâs removal of Humberto CalderĂłn Berti as his âambassadorâ to Colombia in November 2019. CalderĂłn Berti reported that humanitarian aid destined to Venezuela was getting siphoned off by opposition operatives. He told reporters âI did not invent this. Colombian authorities alerted me and showed me documents.â Accusations went back and forth but the fact of the matter is that, unlike everyone else involved, the 79-year old CalderĂłn Berti is a reputable statesman and former foreign relations minister with a reputation for personal honesty.
The role of another long-standing politician with an impeccable reputation of personal integrity poses a much greater challenge to GuaidĂł from within the opposition camp. Claudio FermĂn, Caracasâ first elected mayor in 1989, has emerged as the leading figure of Venezuelaâs moderate opposition. FermĂn since the outset of his career has been conservative on economic policy (as are most other âmoderateâ opposition leaders) and thus can hardly be accused of being a fellow traveler of the Chavistas (followers of Hugo ChĂĄvez).
Up until late last year, the moderates, who favor electoral participation and reject the radical rightâs non-institutional road to power, were intimidated by Washingtonâs support for regime change that was seconded by the international commercial media. But in late last year, the moderates went on the offensive when for the first time they unified by grouping in the National Roundtable Dialogue (MDN).
MDN congresspeople who are dissident members of the main political parties, with the votes of the Chavistas, elected a new president of the National Assembly to replace GuaidĂł. As a result, the National Assembly split in two bodies, each claiming to be legitimate.
The moderates not only achieved organizational unity, but they began to lash out at the intransigent opposition which, following the line coming from the Trump administration, accepted negotiations only with regard to the terms in which Maduro was to step down from office.
Amazingly, FermĂn, whose political background is anything but leftist, accused the GuaidĂł leadership of collaborating with the imperialists. âImperialism,â he declared âfor the first time is cooking in Venezuelan ovens⊠Itâs the first time we have seen Venezuelans imploring that they intervene in our country.â
FermĂn and the MDN openly broke with the radical oppositionâs and Washingtonâs narrative that the entire Venezuelan political system is illegitimate.
Not only does FermĂn explicitly recognize the legitimacy of the Maduro presidency, but also the nationâs political institutions. Indeed, the MDN took the initiative of going to the supreme court to argue that the National Assembly, due to internal divisions, would never achieve the two thirds vote necessary to renovate the national electoral commission, and requested that the court appoint its five new members.
The courtâs move was denounced by Washington as well as the European Union.
December Boycott
Much is at stake, as the electoral commission will supervise upcoming elections for a new National Assembly that is slated for December. FermĂn, who is already preparing to participate in the contest, rules out âany type of alliance with those who defend sanctions and economic blockades against the nation.â
Two of the five new CNE members belong to the opposition and pledge their allegiance to GuaidĂł but oppose his boycott of the December elections. One of them, Luis GutiĂ©rrez, is the brother of Democratic Actionâs organizational secretary. Democratic Action (AD), one of the largest parties of the opposition, is on record for rejecting participation in the December elections but is subject to intense, if not internecine, internal debate over the matter.
The U.S. State Department has threatened to include Gutiérrez in its sanction list.
ADâs internal strife over electoral participation demonstrates how much Venezuelan politics has changed from a year ago when GuaidĂł counted on the support of the entire opposition in his efforts to topple the Maduro government.
The other big opposition party, Primero Justicia, is also subject to infighting with its ex-presidential candidate Henrique Capriles open to electoral participation. .Bloomberg reports that several Primero Justicia congresspeople have recently called on the State Department to pull its support for GuaidĂł and switch to the less intransigent Capriles.
A Fringe Party
Next to Primero Justicia and Democratic Action, GuaidĂłâs Popular Will is a small fringe party, whose major strength lies in the unwavering support its leaders receive from Washington.
GuaidĂł and his allies attribute the emergence of the MDN to government payoffs to its leaders.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin slapped sanctions on seven MDN congressmen who he labeled âcorruptâ and claimed they âtried to block the democratic process in Venezuela.âBut the MDN cannot be dismissed that easily. The surveys show majority support for the MDN position on electoral participation and opposition to the new round of abstentionism proposed by the radical right.
In the face of such sharp public opinion shifts in Venezuela, Washington confronts the dilemma of whether to revise its Venezuela policy. But both Trump advisers and Biden are unconvinced by Trumpâs realistic assessment expressed on Friday.
On Monday, Trumpâs press secretary Kayleigh McEnany stated, âNothing has changed. He [Trump] continues to recognize Juan Guaido as the leader of Venezuela.â Biden, for his part, criticized Trumpâs willingness to talk to âthugs and dictators like Nicolas Maduro.â
These statements are all the more reason to consider what is happening on the ground in Venezuela, as opposed to the wishful thinking of Washington pundits and policy makers as well as commercial media spins.
Washingtonâs real challenge, along with the corporate media, is how to explain that after calling for a military coup in Venezuela, implementing draconian measures against the Venezuelan economy, labeling Maduro a narcoterrorist, and depositing complete faith in GuaidĂł, Trump now has had a change of heart. Not only Trump but the entire Washington political establishment have a lot of explaining to do.
Featured image: President Donald J. Trump welcomes Juan Guaido, as interim president of Venezuela, to the White House on Feb. 5, 2020. (White House, Tia Dufour)
Steve Ellner
Steve Ellner is currently an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives. He is a retired professor from the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela where he taught economic history and political science from 1977 to 2003. Among his more than a dozen books on Latin American politics and history is his soon-to-be released edited Latin Americaâs Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings (Rowman & Littlefield). He has published on the op-ed pages of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
