Anyone who thinks Guyana’s politics are complicated, confusing and exhausting has not been following the events which have been convulsing Venezuela’s political universe. These, it might be added, are accompanied by levels of illegality which are disconcerting even by our none-too-exacting standards. As such, this country in concert with Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Saint Lucia, has condemned the latest political development in Caracas after the board of the legislature there was taken over unlawfully last week, effectively by force.
Venezuela has now notched up a first in the world in terms of its political institutions; it has two of everything. It has two presidents – Nicolás Maduro and self-declared interim president Juan Guaidó; two National Assemblies – the official one and the government’s illegally constituted one called the Constituent Assembly; a board of the National Assembly elected by that institution as well a new board backed by the government; and the Supreme Tribunal or supreme court staffed by government appointed judges as well as a Supreme Tribunal ‘in exile’ with judges appointed according to the law by the National Assembly.
In practice, of course, with one exception it is not a case of one set of institutions wrangling with the other for control of government; the incumbent regime indisputably holds the reins. Mr Maduro exercises all the powers inherent in the Venezuelan presidency; the highest court in the land still functions as it always has under the auspices of Miraflores; and while control of the National Assembly lies in opposition hands and it does pass legislation, it has no means of enforcing this. In the meantime, the president has been using the illegally formed Constituent Assembly to bypass it in some areas. The one sector where the Assembly still does exert real authority is in the matter of obtaining credit abroad, which will not be granted without its approval.
The existence of this independent body whose members were elected in a more-or-less free and fair vote therefore grates on Mr Maduro. Most of all, he has to endure the irritation that its Speaker, Mr Juan Guaidó, declared himself interim President of Venezuela on the basis of a provision in the Constitution which allows him to do this if the post is vacant. In this case, the Venezuelan opposition as well as most Western nations consider that it is indeed vacant because the election which brought Mr Maduro to office was marred by fraud. If that were not enough, over 50 nations have so far officially recognised Mr Guaidó as the rightful president of Venezuela.
With the advent of the New Year, Venezuela’s incumbent head of state made a move to seize control of the National Assembly. Aside from Mr Maduro’s obvious interest in taking it over, there has been a report attributed to Bloomberg that the Russian Vice-Minister of Finance Sergey Storchak said his country was ready to step up its involvement in Venezuela and send advisors to guide the government in several areas, including the economy, social policy and the oil sector once Mr Guaidó was no longer Speaker. Some commentators expressed the view that Russia was now supplanting Cuba in terms of influence over Miraflores.
Whether or not that is the case, last Sunday, the action was directed at taking over the board of the Assembly by electing a new Speaker, which is done on January 5 every year. In order to accomplish this, the streets around the Assembly were cordoned off by security personnel and Mr Guaidó and his supporting opposition deputies were prevented from entering the Chamber. The international news media broadcast footage of the Speaker trying to climb a fence in order to get access to the building, but his efforts were thwarted by members of the National Guard.
While this was going on, inside the Assembly a former opposition member, Luis Parra, who had been expelled by his own party because of allegations of corruption and who is now working with the governing party, was elected Speaker and a new board was voted in. Leaving aside the exclusion of so many legitimate deputies, the proceedings were unlawful because there was no quorum and the rules of procedure were blatantly ignored. Even Mr Parra himself could not craft a consistent story on the matter, saying on Sunday, according to reports, that 81 deputies had voted for him; on Monday, that there was a list of the deputies who had done so; on Tuesday, that it was a show of hands because of the “evident majority”; and on Wednesday, that they were checking the video to see who had raised their hand.
After being refused access to the Chamber, the deputies who had been shut out took themselves to the offices of El Nacional, where an official session was held, and according to opposition lawmakers, Mr Guaidó was elected Speaker by 100 deputies in conformity with all the rules. His legitimacy in this post has been acknowledged by those nations which recognised his interim presidency last year, while, in addition, the violence associated with what transpired on Sunday has been denounced by the US, EU, Colombia and others, as well as the nations listed above. Given that, Mr Maduro will still not be able to ask for foreign loans without the authorisation of this official National Assembly. For their part, the Americans were reported by Reuters as mulling further sanctions, including against Mr Parra and his associates.
And as for the whereabouts of Mr Maduro himself while all this was going on, the BBC said he was inaugurating a new baseball stadium, which the Caracas Chronicles sarcastically referred to as him pretending to play softball.
Mr Guaidó and his advisors, however, realised they would have to occupy the premises of the National Assembly if they were to retain their legitimacy, and they duly did this on Tuesday, when they pushed their way past the clearly nervous National Guard, who were taken by surprise, to enter the Chamber. There they held the first session of the year and ratified what had been done in the El Nacional building two days earlier, while the Speaker once more swore an oath of office as caretaker president. As for Mr Parra and his supporters, they scurried out just before Mr Guaidó’s arrival after holding a very brief session. Reuters reported that Mr Parra was espied running across the compound in order to avoid meeting Mr Guaidó face to face.
Clearly reinvigorated, the Speaker announced a rally on Saturday and called on his supporters to join legislators when they return next Tuesday to the National Assembly for an official session. Exactly what will take place then is unclear, since theoretically there will be two rival Speakers claiming their seat in the designated chair. The BBC has reported that as it is, Mr Parra has already moved into the Speaker’s office. It is hard to see President Maduro not supporting his ‘Speaker’ and allowing Mr Guaidó to proceed as if nothing had happened. Even the latter is clearly expecting violence, since he has advised journalists covering the session to wear hard hats.
It is conceivable of course that the game could be played as it was last Tuesday, with Mr Parra’s session taking place early in the morning, and the Chamber vacated before Mr Guaidó’s arrival. However, it is hard to see that happening on a weekly basis indefinitely.
It may be that the rally called for yesterday was just a means of testing how many of Mr Guaidó’s supporters could be expected to come out on Tuesday, but be that as it may, even opposition sources feel that there is little appetite among Venezuelans at the moment for further civil strife. In Caracas especially, the economic situation has improved somewhat, and people feel that last year the street action produced no result and for all the foreign backing, the opposition was unable to effect change.
One of the writers on the left-wing site Venezuelanalysis, which purveys a government line, has said that it can be expected that the administration will extend currency and price control liberalisation and open the economy to domestic and foreign private investment, including, in the case of the latter, in the oil industry. If that does happen, it would certainly signal that Russia is exerting greater influence on policy in Caracas than is Cuba. This would be a matter of interest to the US, and, it might be said, to Guyana as well.
The Venezuelan president has a second opportunity to take control of the National Assembly in the not too distant future if he does unexpectedly back off from a confrontation on Tuesday, because elections to that body are due this year. Given his demonstrated aversion to free and fair polls, it could be anticipated that his nominated deputies would win.