Waiting For Guaidó: This Is About More Than Venezuela

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Waiting for Guaidó: This is about more than Venezuela; it’s about the future of the liberal international order
Christopher Sabatini

When I was living in Washington, DC in the early 2000s there was a steady stream of Venezuelan opposition leaders who passed through town warning (correctly) about the dangers of chavismo and claiming they had inside information that President Hugo Chávez couldn’t last much longer. Their insistence that political change was just around the corner led to a Washington-insider joke. It went something like this: then-President George W. Bush falls into a coma and wakes up 20 years later. He immediately turns to his advisors and says, “What’s changed? Is that guy Putin still in power?” His advisors smile and proudly say, “Nope, he was voted out of office long ago in a color revolution.” Inspired, Bush continues: “What about that brutal theocracy in Iran. Is it still there?” Again the advisors smile, “Nope. Thankfully a combination of sanctions and popular protests brought the Arab Spring to Iran.” Then Bush, encouraged, asks “And what about that crazy guy in Venezuela, Chávez, is he still in power?” At this point the advisors look around guiltily and say, “Well, Mr. President he is still in office, but we have inside information that he’s not going to last much longer.”

Of course, the father of Venezuela’s tragic mess, Hugo Chávez, passed before the disaster he created came home to fully roost, but his brutal, incompetent successor, Nicolas Maduro, manages to cling to power despite a mind-boggling collapse of the economy, healthcare system, society, electric grid, and even potable water system. Now, more than two months after there appeared to be a long-overdue broad international consensus around a viable exit strategy, we are still waiting. 

The Trump administration is to be applauded for working with the international community, and the Grupo de Lima in particular, to recognize National Assembly president Juan Guaidó as the constitutional interim president. The democratic opposition’s move to both unite behind one leader and use his swearing in as a rallying cry against Nicolas Maduro’s fraudulent re-election—as well as the preceding assaults on freedom and institutional checks on his rule—was a masterful stroke. For years, the international community has stood on the sidelines as first Chávez and then Maduro undermined elections, the rule of law, the integrity of the military, local government and freedom of expression as they converted the state into a criminal enterprise.

Read more at: https://theglobalamericans.org/2019/04/waiting-for-guaido-this-is-about-more-than-venezuela-its-about-the-future-of-the-liberal-international-order/