Juan Guaidó … the end of an illusion

The name of Juan Guaidó did not last long. The recent parliamentary elections in Venezuela ended the man’s last fortune, ending a political process that had just begun. The man who declared himself interim president two years ago and led, in parallel, a failed coup attempt to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, appears to be losing his supporters, whether at home or even abroad, as well as the trust of the “hawks” of the US administration who are determined to subjugate Caracas no matter what the situation requires. Assigning this mission to Guaidó. The opponent, who has been repeatedly described as a “Washington puppet,” has done everything possible to get rid of Maduro; Starting with the main demonstrations against the regime, going through trying to co-opt the military establishment to cause a coup, to gaining world attention through tours of the capitals that support it. But all his attempts were unsuccessful, which is what Guaidó himself admitted a year ago.

Guaidó was born on July 28, 1983 in La Gueira / Vargas (North Center). The young engineer presents himself as a “survivor of the Vargas tragedy” (December 1999), which is classified as one of the greatest natural disasters that Venezuela has experienced. In 2007, Guaidó began his political activities as one of the leaders of the Venezuelan student movement “Manos Blancas”, opposed to the government of the late President Hugo Chávez, funded by the United States Agency for International Development. Two years later, he became a founding member of the “Popular Will” party founded by opposition leader Leopoldo López. He entered the Venezuelan National Assembly for the first time in 2010, which paved the way for him to be elected by the Venezuelan opposition parties as their leader, for which he assumed the presidency of Parliament on January 5, 2019. Then, the day 23 of the same, received a call from the Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence received the green light to declare himself interim president.
At first, Guaidó’s character remained “anonymous.” Only the above was known about him, until two journalists, Max Blumenthal and Dan Cohen, published a detailed report on the “Gray Zone” website, containing the story of the “transitional president,” to show that the man It did not appear by chance, but rather as the result of a decade of relentless American attempts to overthrow the regime. In Venezuela. Since 2005, according to the two writers, he began working on the formation of some right-wing student cadres, including Guaidó, with the aim of undermining the government of Caracas. In October of the same year, “Guaidó, accompanied by four student leaders, arrived in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, to join the Center for Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) to train in the Color Revolutions.” Upon his return from Washington, where he enrolled in the Governance and Political Management Program at George Washington University, under the tutelage of Venezuelan economist Louis Enerque Berrizpetta, one of Latin America’s leading neoliberal economists, Guaidó was known only among groups. right. But his proximity to Leopoldo López (his party’s name was linked to organizing violent events in 2014, when a group of students erected checkpoints across the country and closed down opposition-controlled neighborhoods), marked a milestone in the rise of his political personality. As one of the participants in the events of 2014, Guaidó posted a video tape on his Twitter account, in which he said: “These students have returned to Venezuela to be an American arm against the state,” before later deleting it. Thanks to the networks that he managed to weave in Washington, López, who and his party had the strong support of the Republican senator of Cuban descent, Marco Rubio, strengthened Guaidó’s leadership capacity. After the Venezuelan government arrested López in 2014 for his association with the “Guarimba” events, Guaidó installed his successor in the leadership of “the popular will.”
Earlier this year, due to his failure to bring about the expected change in Caracas, Guaidó’s popularity plummeted and only a few protesters participated in anti-regime demonstrations. From 63% in early 2019, its popularity reached 38% in December of the same year, according to an opinion poll conducted by the Datanalysis office. The commitment to overthrow Maduro was not the only thing that Guaidó lost, adding to this his commitment to uniting the Venezuelan opposition, which today seems weaker than ever. Guaidó left a deeply divided opposition, which he was repeatedly accused of “dissolving.” With his exit from the electoral race and leaving the arena to the socialists, the “transitional president” has put an end to a political process that combined the radicalism and opportunism that Washington needed to break through in Venezuela. However, the White House was unable to defend Guaidó’s legitimacy, which was exemplified, for example, by the stumbling of the United States special envoy to Venezuela, Elliot Abrams, when asked, in March 2019, about legitimacy. of the continuous “interim president” of Guaidó, because it was decided The day he is declared president, it will be for only one month. Abrams said: “The 30 days do not start now, but after Maduro.” Yet Guaidó remained, even in the eyes of his American backers, “a president whose term never began.”

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