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Guaido returns to Venezuela and a new phase in campaign

13 Comments
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA

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13 Comments
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Actually, as the winner of a free and fair election, he does have the right...

Free and fair election? Venezuela??? Lol

...unless you "think" democracy has no place in determining leaders

Democracy left that country when Chavez took over and now his surrogate thug is trying to hold on to his power for as long as he can. He needs to go, period!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

"Maduro was elected democratically", yes, if you consider that his army forced voters to ballots - which, during vote counting, should come out with more votes to Maduro than the other options. Sorry if you get informed thru the likes of Reuters, but the real situation in Venezuela is very different from what you are posting here.

Guaidó has said many times, and is supported by neighbors that have to bear with the consequences of famine and violence of Maduro's regime, that he is interim President, until Venezuela recovers and new elections are defined. Any other situation other than the interim one would be dismissed by the Lima Group, which is the best observer of the crisis in Venezuela.

Guaidó is not in a comfortable situation, but it's the only one that Venezuelans have right now. Venezuelans are calling for a military intervention in their own country, they are desperate out of hunger, violence and assassinations, only by being opponents to Maduro's dictatorship.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

This puppet is nothing without protection from this crowd of foreign diplomats.

No, he is the elected representative to the National Assembly of the people AND was chosen as the President of the Assembly by his peers. He didn't get their being a puppet. This is sorta like how the US Vice President is the "President of the Senate", legally.

Sid - The Venezuelan constitution allows the National Assembly President to become interm President for a number of reasons. His goal isn't to be President, but to hold new elections which aren't full of electoral fraud ASAP.

Article 233 refers to the president’s “absolute absence” (faltas absolutas), or permanent unavailability to serve, for reasons of death, resignation, physical or mental incapacity, abandonment of office, or the popular revocation of his mandate.

https://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/venezuela-president-of-the-national-assembly-cites-constitutional-basis-for-assuming-office-the-presidency-on-an-interim-basis/

His claim to the presidency, for a short period to old new elections, has nothing to do with being the opposition and everything to do with electon fraud, being the sitting National Assembly President and the Venezuelan Constitution.

BTW, when election fraud has been found in the USA, the elections where thrown out. https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article227077449.html was from the November 2018 election in NC.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

John Bolton's democracy: when the US gets to choose your president.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Venezuelan politics has been muddy for a long time.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2017 that it has the powers of the Legislature when the national ruling party didn't win in 2016 elections. The court is stocked with President Maduro loyalists. A few days later, the court rescinded that ruling after public protests and international protests.

In 2017, the Constituent Assembly tried to take the powers that the National Assembly holds by edict. The Constituent Assembly is stocked with Maduro loyalists. Funny how that works.

Prior elections in Venezuela have 70+% voter turnout. The election that Maduro won recently had only 3.7 million voters. That's less than 33% of voters and 50% less than Maduro is claiming - he should know, since his people stuffed the ballot boxes. They forgot that counting people entering voting places, counted by election officials, is harder to hide. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-turnout/venezuela-vote-turnout-was-32-percent-by-6-pm-election-board-source-idUSKCN1IM03J

I don't claim to have an answer. Many (most?) political leaders in Latin America are about grabbing their wealth while in office and setting up their families forever. At least until the next election and the police show up to put them in jail for crimes while in office. It is clear that democracy in Venezuela is teetering and is probably already gone. Their current setup of picking the Constituent Assembly by secure party ballots without any public input is bad. The wolves are in the the chicken house there.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

He was greeted at the country's main airport by top diplomats from the United States, Germany, Spain and other countries who possibly hoped to head off any move to detain Guaido by bearing witness to his return.

This puppet is nothing without protection from this crowd of foreign diplomats.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

I think Maduro is awful, and has no right to be in power in Venezuela. However I don't understand how Guaido can simply declare himself as leader, simply because he is leader of the opposition party. He hasn't been voted in legitimately either.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Ye's, Guaido has entered a new phase in his campaign to displace the democratically elected government of Venezuela, getting enough support from Venezuelans to be able to not face the fiasco that the last serious attempt to do so (which he also supported) faced, an immediate, massive, popular, unorganized, spontaneous uprising against it.

And that will be much harder than this last phase, touring the enemies of democracy and government in the interests of the population, not the corporations, who are eager to pretend his pretenses have legitimacy.

And while the Venezuelan constitution does provide for the head of the legislature to be made acting head of the executive, it doesn't give him, or even the legislature the power to make him that. No, it is the judiciary that has that power, and they oppose his attempt and support the actual democratically elected President. As any rational person would, especially anyone who thinks democracy is better than a dictatorship, given Guaido, like some posters, refuses to accept the legitimacy of any election, even independently certified, internationally monitored, free and fair elections the right wingers lose.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Unlike Maduro's supporters, Guaido supporters are white, they represent the elite.

This video explains well why the US and UK are so interested in "bringing democracy" to Venezuela:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeNCbXVHrR8

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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