The Venezuelan opposition is weakening as Biden takes office

Mr Maduro has publicly stated that his government is willing to engage with the US, although previous efforts to mediate a dialogue have failed.

An official of the president-elect’s transition team, Joe Biden, said he did not intend to negotiate with Mr Maduro, adding that he had no communication with the Venezuelan regime.

“President-elect Biden has been clear throughout the campaign and during the transition that he believes Maduro is a dictator and that the Biden administration will be with the Venezuelan people and their call for the restoration of democracy through free and fair elections,” the official said. said.

The US will try to rebuild multilateral pressure on Mr Maduro, demand the release of political prisoners, impose sanctions on Venezuelan officials guilty of corruption and human rights abuses, and grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans living in the United States.

As Mr Maduro tightens his grip on Congress, the country’s opposition will soon receive another blow. Some opposition lawmakers who remain close to Mr Guaidó plan to flee the country, fearing imprisonment if they remain in Venezuela, according to opposition activists. With no power or control over the territory, what Mr Guaidó and his team call an interim government is now little more than a virtual entity, making pro-democracy statements through social media and Zoom. The Trump administration has said it still considers Mr. Guaidó the only democratically elected leader in Venezuela.

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

As Mr Biden prepares to be inaugurated as US president on January 20, Venezuelan opposition leaders have said they are moving away from strategies to spark a revolt to force Mr Maduro out of power. Instead, they said they would be more inclined to find a way to alleviate food and medicine shortages in a country facing economic disaster. One-third of Venezuelans cannot access three meals a day, according to the UN World Food Program. Up to half endure daily power outages as it struggles to meet annual inflation of nearly 12,000%, according to Caracas-based business consulting firm Ecoanalítica.

Since the US first recognized Mr Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president in January 2019, Washington has imposed financial and oil sanctions and provided international support for a coup overthrowing Mr Maduro. This effort failed.

Now, many opposition activists, as well as former advisers to President Trump, say changes are needed.

“The whole Guaidó intergovernmental scheme has probably survived,” said Juan Cruz, who previously advised the White House on Venezuela’s policy. He said the United States must reconsider its general sanctions, which targeted state-owned companies and individuals accused of corruption and human rights abuses.

“January is a new day for many players: the opposition, the US administration and even the regime,” Mr Cruz said.

Mr Guaidó, in a recent video address on Twitter, tried to instil confidence in his movement, making sure it was unified and would lead the country to free elections. “The dictatorship will not leave voluntarily and that is why we must make them leave,” he said.

He urged supporters to protest in the streets on Tuesday, while Mr Maduro’s allies took their seats in the National Assembly. He also called on Venezuelan envoys operating in other countries to put pressure on host nations to increase pressure on Mr Maduro.

But he proposed something else. And in Venezuela, the economic collapse and prisons have worried most Venezuelans to have access to less running water and fuel than to think about protests.

“You have lost the ability to mobilize people,” said Luis Vicente León, a political analyst who runs the Caracas polling station Datanálisis. “Today there is no one to press Maduro in Venezuela – without political negotiations, without participating in elections or protests. The result is the complete spraying of the opposition. “

In a recent poll, Datanálisis found that only 25% of respondents said they had hopes for a democratic transition in the country. Ecoanalítica estimates that the economy contracted by 23% in 2020, after falling by 40% a year earlier.

The country’s lack of hope is expected to increase the flow of desperate Venezuelans, who now number five million. The Organization of American States estimates that the number of Venezuelan migrants could increase to seven million by the end of 2021, more than the number of Syrians fleeing the country’s brutal war.

The political confrontation makes it difficult to find solutions to the humanitarian crisis. Opposition lawmakers, allied with Mr Guaidó, recently passed a resolution on the Zoom video conference calling for them to continue in office after Tuesday, when their five-year terms in Congress ended. They claimed that the legislative elections held by Mr Maduro last month were illegitimate, as were the United States and many other countries.

Mr Maduro said in a recent address that he would repress any parliamentarian who tries to extend his term. “I will not be afraid to act fiercely to enforce the law,” the left-wing leader shouted in a televised speech, flanked by senior military command.

But Mr Guaidó is also facing cracks in his own movement. Democratic action, one of the main political parties in the opposition coalition, abstained from voting on keeping Mr Guaidó as head of the assembly. Some lawmakers said they had lost confidence in his team.

Oscar Ronderos, a democratically speaking parliamentarian, described the current opposition movement as “an interim government that does not exist, in a National Assembly that serves no one”.

“It makes very little sense to continue” the Guaidó-led movement after January 5, he said.

The internal discord of the movement, according to opposition MPs, could further damage its credibility, especially among European Union countries that are negotiating with the regime to allow humanitarian aid and subsequently a free-choice agreement.

In recent weeks, the Maduro regime has cracked down on the arbitrary detention of directors of organizations that provide food to poor Venezuelans and the sentencing of six former Citgo executives to long prison terms. The US government has said that executives – five of whom are US citizens – are being unjustly detained.

“Rather than building confidence, it is eroding trust,” for hopes of negotiation, Mr Cruz said.

Julio Borges, who from exile in Colombia serves as a top diplomat for Mr Guaidó’s movement, said he expects the US and its allies not to feel easy for Mr Maduro.

“The most important thing about Venezuela’s democratic struggle is that Maduro is still unable to stabilize the country or increase its popularity,” Mr Borges said.

—Ginette Gonzalez from Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this article.

Write to Kejal Vyas to [email protected]