Pence supports opposition politician who claims to be 'interim president' of Venezuela

RT
Tue, 15 Jan 2019 23:11 UTC

© Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Juan Guaido, President of the Venezuelan National Assembly speaks at an opposition rally in La Guaira, January 13, 2019.

US Vice-President Mike Pence has phoned Juan Guaido, president of the National Assembly of Venezuela who claims to be the country's legitimate leader, and praised his 'courageous leadership' while pledging continued US support.

Pence's phone call to Guaido was meant as expression of US support for the National Assembly as the "only legitimate body in the country," Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed White House official.

News of the phone call comes after a tweet by Pence declaring Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro a "dictator with no legitimate claim to power." Maduro won the May 2018 presidential election with over 67 percent of the vote, but the US has refused to recognize the results.

In the phone call with Guaido, Pence pledged "continued support from the US until democracy is restored" in Venezuela and urged him to unite the opposition groups, according to Reuters.

The National Assembly reportedly declared Guaido "acting president" on January 11, after Maduro was sworn in to his second presidential term. On Tuesday, it declared Maduro a "usurper."

The Trump administration has taken a hard line on Venezuela, calling the current government "illegitimate" and encouraging Latin American countries to sever diplomatic and trade ties with Caracas. Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed to use economic and diplomatic power to "restore a real democracy to that country."

Other prominent political figures in Washington that have called for regime change in Caracas and replacing Maduro with the National Assembly are national security adviser John Bolton and Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida).

Pence's phone call falls short of outright US recognition of Guaido as Venezuela's president, as speculation fed by a CNN report on Tuesday suggested.

Venezuela currently has two competing legislatures: the pro-government Constitutional Assembly elected in August 2017 has stripped the opposition-dominated National Assembly of its powers. The US and many of Venezuela's neighbors have not recognized that election as legitimate.

Industrious Wikipedia editors appear to have already embarked on conjuring Washington's declarations into reality, declaring Guaido "interim president" of Venezuela as of January 11, while noting that "Maduro is still believed to be in power."

Comment: 1/15/2019 More from the Miami Herald:

President Donald Trump is mulling whether to recognize the president of Venezuela's opposition-controlled National Assembly as the de facto leader of Venezuela instead of President Nicolás Maduro, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

The administration initially did not plan to take major steps after Maduro's inauguration last week, not wanting to give Maduro more attention, but ended up scrambling over the weekend to come up with a response following the outcry by international groups, Venezuelan emigrés in Miami and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, who has spoken repeatedly to Trump about the matter.

"Under the Venezuelan constitution, in absence of a president, the leader of the National Assembly assumes the presidency until there's a new election. Recognizing Juan Guaidó is the next logical step," said Rubio.

Fernando Cutz, who served as director for South America and acting senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council in the Trump administration, said "We're all recognizing this [the National Assembly] as the only legitimate democratic body in the country. And the constitution says that if the president is unavailable and the vice president unavailable, then essentially their speaker of the House becomes president."

The Trump administration is already taking steps to cut off some international ties with the Maduro government. Maduro was sworn in last week for a second six-year term, but the international community has largely questioned his legitimacy following what it sees as a fraudulent election. More than 21 former presidents and heads of government of Latin America and Spain said they recognized Guaidó as "the president in charge of Venezuela."

Guaidó was briefly arrested on Sunday, two days after declaring that he was prepared to take over temporarily as the country's leader.

See also:

• 'Time for a new government': US endorses Venezuelan opposition seeking to depose Maduro
• Has Maduro really dissolved the National Assembly in Venezuela?
• US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido, ready to depose President Maduro in 'democratic' coup