On January 28, COHA’s Editorial Board released a statement condemning the US-backed coup attempt in Venezuela and in support of the dialogue promoted by the government of Mexico and the United Nations to settle the conflict peacefully. Since then, the regime change effort has severely lost momentum. The strained attempt to legitimize self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó, a previously unknown 35-year-old National Assembly member of the right-wing Voluntad Popular party, has largely failed. The government of President Nicolás Maduro remains firmly in power and only a handful of military leaders have defected to Guaidó’s side. In spite of multiple US allies in the Western Hemisphere, Europe and beyond having formally recognized Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president, four of the five major emerging BRICS nations – Russia, China, India, and South Africa – continue to recognize Maduro, along with 15 other African countries, some of the Caricom nations and stalwart regional allies Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Cuba.
Coup attempt in tatters
To witness the growing cracks in the coup plotters’ strategy, one need only to observe Guaidó’s own increasingly desperate antics. At the international level, he has been frantically attempting to gain control of foreign-held government assets – so far, to little avail. On the domestic front, having promised amnesty to members of the military who are willing to defect to his side, he is now struggling to get a measure to keep this promise passed by the opposition-controlled National Assembly that he leads. And in the latest provocative move, he recently called on supporters to surround military bases and “demand the delivery of humanitarian aid.” As a result, the opposition camp seems to be fracturing even further, with several of its major figures – including Claudio Fermín and Laidy Gómez – now calling Guaidó’s strategy into question.
