Venezuela went to the polls on Sunday to vote for members of the National Assembly. Its current term expires on January 5, and since the opposition boycotted the election on the grounds it was not free and fair, no one was surprised that President Nicolás Maduro’s party and its allies won 91% of the vote. They will now hold 253 of the 277 seats in the legislature. If that did not come as any kind of revelation to anyone, Mr Maduro was probably embarrassed by the very low turnout – 31% − which countered any perception he might have sought to promote that he had been given a ringing endorsement by the electorate.
The present Assembly has been controlled by the opposition for the past five years, following an election in which the President did not cheat enough, according to cynics. While under the constitution the congress has considerable powers, in effect it was neutralised because Mr Maduro used the government controlled Supreme Court to negate any laws it passed. In addition, he set up a rival Constituent Assembly through which he worked. That notwithstanding, it was still an irritant to him that he did not control all the arms of the state, even without the complicating factor of Mr Juan Guaidó.
And Mr Guaidó was a particular problem. He had been recognised as the interim president by 50 countries including the USA and the EU. This was on the basis that the national election which brought Mr Maduro to the presidency had been rigged, and he therefore could not be recognised as a legitimate holder of presidential office. Under the constitution the head of the National Assembly, i.e. Mr Guaidó, would thus become interim president until a new election was held.
Mr Guaidó went about setting up a parallel presidency, and named almost 50 ambassadors to the countries which recognised him. Finan-cially too he was an impediment to President Maduro, since he was given control over US$342 million in US accounts that had been seized by Washington under its sanctions’ regime. While that was certainly not good news for Miraflores, it did not help the opposition much either, since according to Reuters, Treasury restrictions over the use of the funds became a source of frustration.
More serious from President Maduro’s point of view, was the initial failure of Banco Central de Venezuela (the nation’s central bank) to access US$1.8 billion in gold reserves held by the Bank of England on behalf of Venezuela, even though it was guaranteed the money would be used only for Covid-19 relief. The question revolved ultimately around whether Maduro or Guaidó was the legitimate head of state. The English high court found against President Maduro, but the case was appealed, and the appeal court reversed the high court decision, sending the matter to a commercial court to be decided. That case is yet to be heard, but it may be that Mr Maduro may feel more optimistic about its outcome now that technically speaking, although not ethically speaking, Mr Guaidó’s term as head of the National Assembly will come to an end in just over three weeks’ time.
Never mind the undemocratic nature of the December 6 legislature vote, and the number of nations with power or leverage that say they will still recognise the presidency of Mr Guaidó, he is nonetheless in something of a dilemma. Despite persistent efforts and foreign endorsement he has altogether failed to dislodge Mr Maduro from his presidential perch, and the populace which gave him initial support has grown disillusioned. Now he finds himself in a situation where he and his associates will not be able to physically return to the National Assembly. Some members of that body fear that the President will use this latest development as an excuse to have them arrested.
According to Reuters, Mr Guaidó’s main move so far is to call on citizens to take part in a consultation beginning tomorrow, which will ask them whether they reject the results of Sunday’s vote, and whether they would like to see the government change. What would follow from that is not clear.
The agency also reported legislator Mr Freddy Guevara as saying that lawmakers allied to Mr Guaidó will continue to maintain that they are legitimate members of the National Assembly after January 5, because the poll on Sunday was fraudulent. As an extension of that, he said, Mr Guaidó would still be the interim president. However, he went on to say that they were discussing reducing the number of their ambassadors, and possibly cutting back on the size of the Assembly as well.
In contrast, former opposition presidential candidate Mr Henrique Capriles told the BBC he was not in favour of giving “continuity to the status quo: the interim government.” For legislators to continue to call themselves still legitimate after January 5 was to create a precedent, “because we open the door to Maduro saying that he will extend his government without holding an election.” Elsewhere the concerns of some lawyers have been reported saying the constitutional position after January 5 is unclear. In any event, the opposition has been showing signs of fracturing again, and lacking a physical base in the form of the National Assembly, that is a development which is likely to accelerate.
One cannot think that the western international community will go on indefinitely recognising Mr Guaidó after January 5, although exactly what moves they can make in order to bring an end to President Maduro’s grip on power is very uncertain. No one knows at this stage what US President-elect Biden’s policy with regard to Venezuela will be, and no one can be sure that Mr Maduro’s regime won’t become even more brutal, as some legislators fear. In short, it cannot be predicted what the year 2021 will bring for the beleaguered Venezuelan citizenry.
