Oriental Network Longitudinal News Reporter Zhou Anna
At this time a year ago, almost no one had heard of the name Juan Guaido except Venezuela. Truth be told, though, he's actually little known in Venezuela either.
But on January 23, 2019, the young opposition lawmaker quickly took to the global stage at a "swearing-in ceremony" in which he proclaimed himself Venezuela's "interim president" in front of thousands of supporters.
Exactly 365 days have passed, and now what happened to Guaido?
The "Interim President" Incident of Fox Fake Tiger Wei:
On January 10, 2019, Nicolás Maduro, who won the presidential election in Venezuela, was re-elected president to begin a six-year second term.
However, the outcome of this election has been called into question. Venezuela's National Assembly said the election results were invalid and announced that Guaido would act as acting chairman.
On the morning of January 23, hundreds of thousands of Guaido's supporters took part in a protest march. During this time, Guaido made a speech, sworn in as the acting "interim president" of Venezuela, and tweeted: "Today the eyes of the world are looking at our motherland."
After Guaido was sworn in, U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence expressed solidarity with Guaido and official recognition. Pence also said in Spanish, "We are with you," "Follow God."
Subsequently, at the meeting of the Organization of American States, the United States spoke to encourage the member states of the 35 organizations and called on them to recognize the "Guaido government" as soon as possible. The U.S. government said it would only recognize Guaido's actions and would find all of Maduro's orders "illegal" and "invalid," calling it "deeply undemocratic to the regime."
At the "instigation" of the United States, more than 50 countries, including France, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, have joined the ranks of the United States and recognized the "Guaido Provisional Government."
Some countries, including Mexico, Cuba and Bolivia, remain neutral or support the Maduro government.
In addition, at the meeting, US Secretary of State Pompeo said that at Guaido's request, the United States will provide Venezuela's "interim president" with $20 million (about 135 million yuan) of "humanitarian assistance" against Maduro.
With the blessing of the United States, Guaido was once considered the most powerful challenger to the Maduro regime
△ Screenshot of the video of Pompeo's speech
However, now that a year has passed, it turns out that both the United States and Guaido's wishful thinking has failed. Guaido is slowly losing his aura, and his appeal is no longer what it used to be. The election of the President of the National Assembly two weeks ago said it all.
Scandals and Zero Achievements:
On January 5 this year, the Venezuelan National Congress held a new election, and Luis Pará, who had been in the same opposition camp as Guaido, was elected president, while Guaido staged a big "farce" outside the venue.
According to foreign media reports, on the day of the election, Guaido and many other opposition lawmakers were blocked by a large number of shield guard personnel and were banned from entering the national assembly for meetings and voting, and the two sides violently pushed and shoved. Subsequently, Guaido, who was dressed in a suit and leather, tried to climb through the iron gate with the help of supporters, but was blocked by riot shields and batons, and the scene was very chaotic.
Some opposition MPs were unable to enter Parliament. In the absence of a sufficient number of people in the meeting, Luis Parra took the opportunity to take the oath to become speaker of the Parliament. Guaido was in a hurry and refused to recognize the results of the election.
The election of speakers is particularly important for Guaido, who has appointed himself "interim president", because losing the speaker position is equivalent to losing his qualification to "regularize" president.
So hours later, he convened his "own" congress in the office of Venezuela's largest newspaper, El Nacional, and won the support of about 100 members of Congress. As a result, he claimed that he had been re-elected president of the National Congress in this election and could continue to serve as his self-styled "interim president" of Venezuela.
Venezuelan media commented that this is another farce of "self-proclaimed speaker" after Guaido's "self-proclaimed president".
However, one of his good plays was not recognized. Newly elected Speaker Luis Pará said ruthlessly in his inaugural oath of office speech that Guaido "has become a thing of the past". Maduro also acknowledged Pará in a televised address and said the government would continue its dialogue with the opposition.
Although not supported by the Venezuelan president, Guaido is still recognized by the United States. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, "I congratulate Guaido on his re-election as Venezuelan speaker and condemn the Maduro regime's intention to negate the will of the democratically elected Congress." "
Even so, many media analysis, from the perspective of venezuela's domestic situation, Guaido's ability to resist Maduro is undoubtedly greatly weakened. Because, apart from congratulating Guaido on his "re-election" as president of the National Convention, the United States has done nothing more.
Compared to the beginning of 2019, Trump doesn't seem to be as concerned about the situation in Venezuela.
According to the analysis of the outside world, the sanctions and strong pressure launched by the United States are only verbal support for Guaido, and it is impossible to fundamentally change the current domestic situation in Venezuela.
Plummeting support
After a year as "interim president," Guaido's support in Venezuela continues to decline.
According to polls, Guaido's approval rating has dropped from 61.2 percent at the beginning of 2019 to 42.9 percent today. A Venezuelan political scientist said: "Guaido is a great disappointment".
How did it come to this?
After "declaring himself king", Guaido has said several times that he will use the provisions of Article 187 of the Venezuelan Constitution to "authorize" foreign forces to intervene in the situation in Venezuela, which is obviously a "green light" for the UNITED Military Intervention in the Situation in Venezuela.
At the end of April, Guaido tried to launch a coup d'état, publicly calling on the Venezuelan military to abandon maduro's government and switch to his side. But the coup was soon foiled by Maduro. In an interview with The Washington Post, he again claimed that he would agree to the proposal as long as the United States offered to intervene in Venezuela.
Since then, Guaido has lost a lot of prestige at home and abroad.
On January 15 this year, Guaido was once again blocked from the Capitol.
Venezuela's parliament convenes a special session of the National Constituent Assembly, and newly appointed Speaker Luis Pará has called for tougher laws to punish separatist forces in the country. Guaido, as the leader of the opposition, naturally did not want Congress to introduce laws that were unfavorable to him, so he led his supporters to prepare to break into the Capitol and disrupt and interrupt the Legislative Assembly.
It is reported that on the same day, Guaido ordered his supporters to form a convoy and go to the Capitol to block the legislative session.
But then Guaido's convoy was immediately stopped by a Venezuelan civil society motorcycle group and warned them not to go near the Capitol. The head of the motorcycle group told reporters at the scene that Guaido is a complete liar who will only divide Venezuela, so they want to stop Guaido's plot.
Forced by public opinion, Guaido no longer entangled with the people, but instead changed places to convene the "legitimate" legislative council he presided over. Interestingly, after Guaido gave the order to transfer the meeting site, some Venezuelans could no longer hold back their anger and began to smash Guaido's convoy.
Guaido has gradually become a "street rat that everyone shouts and beats."
President Maduro: I would like to have a direct dialogue with the United States:
By contrast, Maduro, far from collapsing, looks a little more stable than he did a year ago.
According to the Washington Post, Venezuelan President Maduro said that Venezuela is ready to hold direct dialogue with the United States. Maduro said that if the government respects each other, conducts dialogue and exchanges real information, then the two countries can establish a new type of relationship, and he also hinted that if the United States lifts sanctions on Venezuela and presses the "restart button" of US-Venezuela relations, US oil companies may make huge profits in Venezuela.
In his State of the Union address delivered on January 14, Maduro clearly stated that the Venezuelan government has seven work plans for 2020 to ensure domestic political, economic and social stability. All this fully shows that Venezuela today is gradually getting back on track.
On the other hand, Guaido traveled to Colombia on the 19th, where he met with US Secretary of State Pompeo.
In response, the Maduro government said: "A lackey goes to Colombia to meet his owner, which is completely irrelevant to us." "
Some experts say maduro has at least two chips in his hands: the first is that he can completely defeat the opposition in Venezuela, and the second is that he must achieve a higher degree of governance, as long as he has not fully achieved his goals in social governance, the possibility of direct dialogue between him and the United States is not very likely. And next year is the election year in the United States, and Trump will not easily talk to Maduro.
Whose fault is it?
Venezuela is a large South American country with abundant natural resources and a high level of education for its citizens, once only half a step away from the ranks of high-income countries, and is also regarded as a model of Latin American democracy. Today, political chaos, economic collapse, people's livelihood is poor, social unrest, such a failure, whose fault is it?
According to the latest Latin American and Caribbean Development Report (2018-2019), the venezuelan crisis has deep domestic and international roots, and the domestic political and economic situation continues to be bad For the poor performance of the ruling party and the lack of ability to resolve the crisis.
The Latin American Economic Observer once published an analysis saying that Venezuela's failure, which seems to be a political failure, is fundamentally due to the failure of the economy.
Venezuela's economy is monolithic and highly dependent on oil. For many years, oil exports have accounted for about 95% of the country's total exports, and 50% of government revenue comes from oil. After 2013, international oil prices fell, Venezuela's oil productivity declined, and oil revenues fell sharply. At the same time, inflation is getting worse, and the inflation rate after 2018 is even more out of control.
As the economy descends into crisis, distortions in economic policy are becoming increasingly difficult to correct. During Chávez's administration, he completely deviated from basic economic laws, undermined market mechanisms, worsened the investment environment, and led to a general decline in productivity and a tight supply of food and necessities.
If Venezuela wants to emerge from failure, the economy must first get out of the quagmire: re-stimulating economic vitality and giving full play to the role of the market will be an inevitable choice.
Second, Venezuela needs a true leader with a high degree of political wisdom and good leadership.
It is not difficult to see that the Chávez and Maduro governments have weak ability to govern the country, and they can neither deal well with the opposition's sabotage nor coordinate the distribution of interests among various interest groups; It is neither possible to formulate and implement the right economic policies nor to skillfully manage relations with different countries.
Therefore, in Venezuela, the long-term political contradictions have not been alleviated in time, leaving the hidden dangers of the crisis. In 2015, after the opposition took control of the country's legislature, its ability and confidence to compete with the ruling party soared. The ruling party can not completely defeat the opposition, but also lacks the willingness to seek consensus, and the two sides go farther and farther on the road of confrontation, which eventually triggers a crisis.
Under the superposition of the above factors, coupled with the support of the United States for the Venezuelan opposition, with Maduro swearing-in as president again on January 10, 2019 as the node, the long-term accumulated contradictions and confrontations between the Venezuelan government and the opposition have developed into a full-scale crisis.
It can be said that no matter what form the venezuelan crisis is ultimately resolved, its negative impact on Venezuela and even latin America cannot be eliminated in the short term.
Venezuela's stormy road will continue to go on.