According to British media reports on the 21st, the Venezuelan opposition coalition is considering a plan that will no longer support the so-called "provisional government" led by opposition leader Guaido . The report said the move was intended to open the way for the United States to reach an oil agreement with the Maduro government.
"Financial Times" report screenshot
Guaido's "People's Will Party" is one of the four major political parties in the "unified platform" of the Venezuelan opposition alliance, and the other three are "Justice First Party", "Democratic Action Party" and "A New Era Party". The Financial Times quoted senior opposition parties as saying that the opposition has decided to abandon Guaido as the "legal leader" of Venezuela's because "most people believe that Guaido and his "provisional government" are inconsistent with the current reality facing our country."
According to this senior opposition member, the three parties, "Justice First Party", "Democratic Action Party", and "A New Era Party" all support "replanning everything" without Guaido as "interim president" and firmly believe that they can have enough votes to advance the process. It is said that the opposition has already discussed whether to continue to authorize the "provisional government" and "a decision is expected to be made within two weeks."
Leopoldo Lopez, leader of the People's Will Party, confirmed that the opposition coalition has debated the actions. "There are indeed some people who support the abolition of the 'provisional government', but the 'People's Will Party' disagrees." Lopez said, "In our opinion, this is an unfortunate decision, which means that the opposition has begun to recognize the Maduro government." A spokesperson next to Guaido said that the opposition coalition has no clear position on the existence of the "provisional government". Regarding the Financial Times report, the "A New Era Party" responded that it would agree on a position in the next few days. The "Justice First Party" and the "Democratic Action Party" did not comment on this.
A spokesperson for the US State Department stated that Washington still recognizes Guaido as Venezuela's "interim president".
Reuters
According to a previous report by Reuters , the 10 major political parties of the Venezuelan opposition have recently agreed to elect a presidential candidate in June next year to participate in the 2024 general election. However, the Venezuelan National Election Commission has not yet determined when the presidential election will be held.
Venezuela is one of the world's major oil producers, and its proven oil reserves rank first in the world. Since 2017, due to dissatisfaction with the rule of left-wing President Maduro, the United States, which was once the main export target of Venezuela's energy, has continuously expanded sanctions, including the Venezuelan oil embargo.
In May 2018, Maduro won re-election in the general election. But the United States and other Western countries support the CPPCC’s opposition’s statement about fraud in the presidential election and acknowledge the opposition leader Guaido’s self-proclaimed “interim president” in January 2019. With the support of the United States, Europe and several Latin American countries, Guaido has tried to use diplomatic pressure to achieve regime change over the past few years without success.
After that, Guaido gradually lost support for EU and control over parliament. As a new group of left-wing leaders in Latin America come to power, support for Venezuela's "provisional government" within Latin America is also weakening. In June this year, U.S. President Biden called Guaido to reiterate his support, but the U.S. government did not invite him to attend the Americas summit held in Los Angeles that month.
Venezuelan President Maduro
Nearly 4 years after he proclaimed himself "interim president", Guaido is facing a situation of being abandoned by the opposition. It is worth mentioning that this news comes as the United States and Europe are eager to find a new source of oil to replace Russian energy.
In March this year, the meeting between U.S. officials in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, became the first bilateral talks between the two sides in years. At that time, some media revealed that US officials proposed in negotiations that Venezuela directly exported oil to the United States in exchange for Washington to relax sanctions on Venezuela.After the news of oil production cuts in "OPEC+" on October 5, the " Wall Street Journal " quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that the Biden administration plans to relax sanctions on Venezuela and allow the US energy giant Chevron to exploit Venezuelan oil. At the same time, both sides "take one step back" and hope that the Maduro government will restart negotiations with the domestic opposition.
The Financial Times believes that the Venezuelan opposition coalition considers abandoning the "provisional government" led by Guaido may aim to open the way for the United States to reach an oil agreement with the Maduro government. There are comments that once the opposition's plan is successful, it will mean that the US-backed attempt to overthrow Maduro will fail four years later.
Author: Wenhui Daily reporter in Mexico City Sun Hua
Editor: Lu Shuwen
Image source: Data photo
