COLUMN | Guaidó and the End of History

El Mercurio, May 2, 2019

Juan Pablo Toro

One of the major dilemmas facing Juan Guaidó 100 days after being appointed interim President of Venezuela by Congress was to keep the opposition mobilized and manage the renewed expectations generated in a population that is at its breaking point due to the effects of the “economic genocide” created by two decades of mismanagement and Chavista corruption.

The events of Tuesday—whose internal logic seems increasingly surprising—and yesterday’s marches can be interpreted in various ways. From a failure for the immediatists, who see that the ultimate goal of removing Nicolás Maduro from power was not achieved (it took Solidaridad eight years to remove Wojciech Jaruzelski in Poland), to a new and risky attempt to maintain the initiative against a fossilized regime committed to a strategy of attrition. However, the outcome clearly highlighted the great complexity that the Venezuelan crisis has acquired.

Venezuela is currently at the center of a conflict on three levels. At the level of powers, with Russia, China, Turkey, and Iran on one side, and the U.S., the European Union, and several countries in the Western orbit on the other. At the regional level, with the Lima Group on one side and Nicaragua, Cuba, and Bolivia on the opposite side (Mexico and Uruguay in an intermediate position). At the national level, with the Maduro regime and the opposition. All these actors manifested themselves on Tuesday.

Last week, during a work visit that allowed me to return to Venezuela for the fifth time (the first was in December 1998 to cover for this newspaper the first election won by Hugo Chávez), I had the opportunity to talk with Juan Guaidó about the prospects for the recovery of democracy.

In an office building in a neighborhood of Caracas, the interim President told me that every minute he is free, Maduro loses power. “How can he let free someone he accuses of attempting a coup?” he wondered. “It makes no sense,” he answered himself.

Regarding the new steps of the opposition, he explained that the strategy will combine popular mobilizations, institutional pressure using the powers of the National Assembly and the Constitution, and international sanctions against the regime’s leadership, as well as efforts to recover funds from the Venezuelan state for reconstruction.

Guaidó, a brave 35-year-old deputy with postgraduate studies in the U.S. from the Voluntad Popular party, believes that popular pressure will become unsustainable due to the collapse of basic services (especially electricity and water). He believes this will open the doors to a transition that will be very “sui generis,” in his own words, where in an exercise of political realism he did not rule out having to negotiate with disaffected elements of the regime, who could later even participate in free elections.

When asked about the position of the military, he recalled that he has urged them to join the democratic forces in exchange for amnesty. However, what happened on Tuesday confirmed that the armed forces are a black box for the opposition, which really seems to have no idea what is happening inside the barracks. This was something that other interlocutors during my visit were much clearer in admitting.

Today, rather than a division between high command and much of the troops, a division between the military and some civilian factions of the government seems more plausible. Some of this was also evident on Tuesday.

In no case did Guaidó delve into a plan B for his strategy. He also did not raise the idea of foreign military intervention, which remains more functional to Chavista rhetoric and is rejected by governments in Latin America.

Those of us who have been direct witnesses to the Venezuelan process for two decades know that Chavismo has a great capacity for resistance. But in Maduro’s case, it is increasingly clear that he has few cards to win the game. His scorched earth policy only increases his rejection. Along the way, he has already destroyed the oil industry, exhausted international reserves, and failed to secure new credits. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House National Security Advisor John Bolton revealed that high-ranking members of the regime are already in direct talks with Washington (distrust has taken root in Miraflores). And Russia has only managed to buy him more time (we still do not know at what price).

Watching day-to-day events in Venezuela can be exciting, but it can also lead to incorrect conclusions. Let us remember that the last two coups in Venezuela in 1992 (led by Chávez) and 2002 (against Chávez) failed; unlike in 1958, when a group of military personnel and sectors of civil society mobilized against dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez and gave rise to a governance pact. Some of that was sensed this week. And now that Francis Fukuyama returns to Chile, the end of history for Venezuela should also lead to liberal democracy. This will undoubtedly take time. And Guaidó already has his merit in that.

Juan Pablo Toro is the executive director of AthenaLab