Venezuelan opposition allowed to take biden set to take fees

Mr. Maduro has publicly stated that his government is committed to the U.S. Ready to join, though past attempts to broker dialogue have failed.

An official from President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team said he had no plans to negotiate with Mr Maduro, adding that he had no contact with the Venezuelan regime.

“The president-elect Biden was clear throughout the campaign and during the transition that he believes Maduro is a dictator and the Biden administration will stand with the people of Venezuela and with his call for the restoration of democracy through fair and impartial elections,” the official said. Said.

The official added that the U.S. Mr Maduro will call for renewed multilateral pressure, the release of political prisoners, the imposition of sanctions against Venezuelan officials convicted of corruption and human rights abuses, and the granting of temporary protection to Venezuelans. U.S.

As Mr Maduro tightens his grip on Congress, the country’s opposition will soon take another blow. Opposition activists said some of the remaining legislators close to Mr Gowde planned to flee the country, fearing imprisonment if they stayed in Venezuela, opposition activists said. With no authority or control over the region, Mr Gowde and his team say the interim government is now making pro-democracy statements through social media and Zoom. The Trump administration has said it still considers Mr. Gowde to be Venezuela’s only democratically elected leader.

With so many in the opposition leadership now outside Venezuela, Mr Gowda has become increasingly isolated, living with his wife and young daughter in a small apartment in Caracas and wondering if the secret police will arrest him.

As Mr Biden prepares to inaugurate as US president on January 20, Venezuelan opposition leaders say they are moving away from a strategy to force Mr Maduro out of power. Instead, they said they would take a more proactive approach to finding a way to address food and drug shortages in a country facing economic crisis. According to the UN World Food Program, one-third of Venezuelans cannot get three meals a day. According to Caracas business-consulting firm Ecoanalytica, about half of the population suffers from a daily supply of electricity, while struggling to cope with an annual inflation of around 5%.

Since the U.S. recognized Mr. Gowda as Venezuela’s interim president in January 2019, Washington has imposed oil and financial sanctions on Shingt and pushed for international support for a movement to overthrow Mr. Maduro. That attempt failed.

Now many opposition activists as well as former advisers to President Trump say change is needed.

Earlier advising the White House on Venezuela policy, Juan Cruz said the entire Gowda interim-government plan may have gone beyond his life. He said the U.S. needs to reconsider its comprehensive sanctions, targeting state companies and figures accusing them of corruption and human rights violations.

“January represents a new day for a lot of players: the opposition, the U.S. administration and the regime here,” Mr. Cruz said.

Mr Gowde, in a recent video address on Twitter, sought to boost confidence in his movement by assuring that it was unified and would lead the country to free elections. “The dictatorship will not leave voluntarily, and that is why we need to give them leave,” he said.

He called on supporters to protest on the streets on Tuesday as Mr Maduro’s allies take their seats in the National Assembly. He also urged Venezuelan envoys operating in other countries to run host country lobbies to increase pressure on Mr Maduro.

But he proposed a little differently. And in Venezuela, economic vulnerability and parts of the prison, most Venezuelans are drowning in the pursuit of scarce running water and fuel, rather than thinking of protest.

“You have lost the ability to mobilize people,” said Louis Vicente Lónn, a political analyst who directs the Caracas polling company, Dayton O’Leary. “No one inside Venezuela today is pressuring Maduro not to engage in political negotiations, not to run in elections or to protest. The result is a complete flurry of opposition. ”

In a recent poll, Datanalisis said only 25% of people said they hoped for a democratic transition in the country. The Economics estimates that the economy contracted by 23% in 2020, down from 40% a year earlier.

The country is expected to see an increase in the influx of desperate Venezuelans due to despair, which now stands at five million. The American Organization of American States estimates that the number of Venezuelan migrants could reach seven million by the end of 2021, more than the number of Syrians fleeing the country’s brutal war.

The political impasse is making it difficult to find solutions to the humanitarian crisis. Opposition lawmakers, in a statement issued Friday stating “Similar, baseless allegations concerning Mr. Gowde’s candidacy for the presidency have been made more than once. They argued that Mr Maduro’s legislative elections in December were illegal, as were the US and many other countries.

Mr Maduro said in a recent address that he was trying to extend his mandate to any legislators. “I will not be afraid to take drastic action to enforce the law,” the left-wing leader shouted in a televised speech by the military high command.

But even Mr. Gowde has to deal with the ins and outs of his own movement. Democratic Action, one of the main political parties in the opposition coalition, abstained from voting to keep Mr. Gowde as speaker of the legislature. Some legislators said they have lost faith in their team.

Democratic Action Lawmaker Scar Ronderos described the current opposition movement as “an interim government that does not exist in the National Assembly, which does not serve anyone.”

5 Jan. The Gowda-led movement then “makes very little sense to continue,” he said.

Opposition lawmakers say the movement’s internal divisions further damage its credibility, especially in EU countries that advocate negotiations with the regime to allow humanitarian aid and later free election agreements.

In recent weeks, the Maduro regime has been reprimanded by arbitrarily detaining the director of a food supply organization for Venezuelans and sentencing six former SITGO officials to long prison terms. U.S. The government has said that officials – five of whom are U.S. Are citizens, they are being treated unfairly.

“Confidence is declining instead of building confidence rather than becoming the hope of negotiations,” Mr. Cruz said.

Julio Borges, who has served as a top diplomat for Mr. Gowda’s movement since his deportation from Colombia, said he expects the U.S. to And his teammates will not go easy on Mr. Maduro.

“The most important thing for the democratic struggle in Venezuela is that Maduro is still unable to stabilize the country or increase its popularity.”

Ginet Gonzalez from Caracas, Venezuela contributed to this article.

Write to Kejal Vyas at [email protected]

Improvement and amplification
According to Caracas business-consulting firm Ecoanalytica, about half of Venezuelans endure a daily supply of electricity when they struggle to get about 2,000% of annual inflation. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated 12,000%. (Retrieved January 4.)