"World" editorial. Viral on social networks, the images of Juan Guaido, president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, trying in vain, Sunday, January 5, to step over the gates of the Parliament, repelled by the shields of the police, will remain as the symbol of the new degree of chaos that the political situation has reached in this country, whose "socialist" regime of Nicolas Maduro, heir to Hugo Chavez, has become a dictatorship. On January 23, 2019, Mr. Guaido, fortified by his election as President of the Assembly, proclaimed himself acting president of the country with the blessing of Donald Trump, denouncing the"Usurpation" in power by Mr. Maduro, re-elected in 2018 in an election deemed fraudulent.
Since then, nearly sixty states, including France, have recognized the legitimacy of Juan Guaido. However, almost a year later, Nicolas Maduro is still in place and Mr. Guaido, who needed a vote of the Assembly on Sunday to remain at his head, is all the less able to impose himself because he gradually loses his support in public opinion.
After the crazy day of Sunday, not only the presidency of Venezuela remains disputed by two men, but its National Assembly has two leaders claiming simultaneously legitimate. While the police were tugging Juan Guaido out of the building, deputies, in a frenzy-like atmosphere, pointed to it by show of hands as President Luis Eduardo Parra, a former opponent accused of corruption. Several hours later, other elected officials, gathered in the offices of an opposition newspaper, denounced a " parliamentary coup d'etat " and re-elected 36-year-old Juan Guaido, confirming him as "Acting president".
The consequences of this accelerated political disintegration are first and foremost alarming for the 30 million inhabitants of Venezuela, long the richest of the countries of South America thanks to its oil, today ruined and threatened by famine. Buoyed by the surge in crude oil prices in the 2000s, the country multiplied its agricultural imports, and its own production collapsed, an evolution aggravated by the interventionism of Hugo Chavez's “Bolivarian revolution”, corruption and insecurity.
4.5 million exiles
The economic situation has also deteriorated as a result of the American sanctions initiated by the Obama administration and accentuated under Donald Trump. Two out of three Venezuelan households say they have already suffered from food deprivation, and 4.5 million people have had to go into exile to survive.
But the chaos in Venezuela also represents a terrible failure of Donald Trump's foreign policy. Obsessed with this country, the American president even considered direct military intervention. He preferred to support Juan Guaido at arm's length, but he underestimated the reality of power struggles. Despite an attempted domestic coup assisted by Washington in April, the Venezuelan military remained loyal to the Maduro regime, which was also supported by Russia, China and Cuba.
Today, the crisis opened with Iran since the assassination of General Souleimani obviously attracts more attention from the White House. However, only diplomatic pressure from democracies including the United States and the European Union could help Venezuelan political actors break the deadlock by negotiating a transition to new elections, in order to put an end to the dramatic drift of a country that has everything, however, to be prosperous.
