Venezuelan Opposition Recognizes their Mismanagement of CITGO and Attempts to Rectify. Any Chance They’ll Succeed?

 

The Hard-Line Venezuelan Opposition’s Attempts to Rectify its Mismanagement of CITGO and other Venezuela Assets Abroad that were Handed over to them. The Inter-American Dialogue, a centrist Washington-based think tank, asked me to contribute to a symposium on the topic. Here is my contribution that they published today in their newsletter “Latin America Advisor.”

The decision of the opposition-led National Assembly to extend Juan Guaidó’s mandate and to create mechanisms to halt the corruption and mismanagement associated with his parallel government is predicated on a false assumption. The deputies of the opposition National Assembly assume that Guaidó is widely viewed as the nation’s legitimate president and that regime change is just around the corner. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. Developments since Guaidó proclaimed himself president exactly three years ago, including regime change plots ending in fiascos and denunciations of corruption, have resulted in a steady erosion of support among his allied parties, within the opposition as a whole, in the region, and world-wide. Thus, the U.N. General Assembly’s vote in December on recognition of the Maduro government was 177 in favor and only 16 against, meaning that the vast majority of the 58 nations that had recognized Guaidó as the legitimate president no longer do so. At the same time, Julio Borges, who was one of Guaidó’s staunchest supporters resigned as his foreign minister and declared that the interim government was nothing but a top-heavy bureaucracy. For Borges, Guaido’s interim government should “disappear” with the exception of the management of foreign assets, which should be administered more efficiently. Nevertheless, without a legitimate “interim” president, the opposition has no justification for controlling Venezuela’s foreign holdings. Moreover, with the implosion of Guaidó’s popularity and his loss of recognition as the nation’s legitimate president, the mismanagement of the multi-billion dollar assets that were turned over to him may be a foregone conclusion.