On 19 November US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recognised the exiled opposition candidate Edmundo González as Venezuela’s “president-elect”.
Analysis:
Blinken’s description of González as president-elect represents a strengthening of US support for the candidate who is widely believed to have defeated President Nicolás Maduro in the disputed 28 July presidential election. This recognition from US President Joe Biden’s government follows similar moves from a number of Latin American countries and the European Parliament. However, it is questionable whether it will have any real impact on the political situation in Venezuela; US recognition of former opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s ‘interim president’ in 2019 failed to loosen Maduro’s grip on power and had little impact beyond a handful of state-controlled companies based outside of Venezuela, which fell under opposition control.
- In a brief social media post, Blinken yesterday wrote that “the Venezuelan people spoke resoundingly on 28 July and made Edmundo González the president-elect”. He added that “democracy demands respect for the will of the voters”. The US declared back in August that González won the most votes in the election, but had hitherto refrained from referring to him as “president-elect”.
- González, who since September has been living in exile in Spain, thanked the US for “recognising the sovereign will of all Venezuelans” and “honouring our people’s desire for change”. In an interview yesterday with the Colombian TV news channel NTN24, González once again said that he plans to return to Venezuela to be sworn in as president on 10 January. He said that “my inauguration will be done in line with the constitution in Venezuela, in front of the legislative bodies that are approved to carry out this inauguration”. He denied that he was planning to be ‘inaugurated’ abroad and form a government-in-exile.
- Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Yván Gil responded to Blinken’s recognition of González by declaring that the Biden administration “should, in the last days of its government, focus on reflecting on its failures, get rid of its imperial and colonial complexes, and write the memoirs of how, like its predecessors, it was forced to taste defeat by the Bolivarian Revolution [the governments of Maduro and his late predecessor Hugo Chávez (1999-2013)]”.
- On 18 November the US lower chamber of congress approved the Bolívar Act, which prohibits US federal agencies from contracting with companies and people that “have business operations with the Maduro regime”. The legislation, which now proceeds to a vote in the senate, could potentially impact US oil firm Chevron, which has a licence to operate in Venezuela despite the current sanctions.
- The president of Venezuela’s national assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, said yesterday that González and the opposition’s de-facto leader within Venezuela, María Corina Machado, should be tried for “treason”. Accusing them of supporting international sanctions on Venezuela, Rodríguez said that a new bill would be drafted in the government-controlled national assembly which would bar anyone who has supported sanctions from holding public office.
Looking Ahead: It is unclear whether the Biden administration intends to recognise González as Venezuela’s official president, as the US did with Guaidó, following the 10 January presidential inauguration date. Doing so would put pressure on President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office ten days later, to maintain that diplomatic stance. The 2019 recognition of Guaidó took place during Trump’s previous presidency (2017-2021), and Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has long been a fierce critic of Maduro’s government.