Venezuelan opposition to face regime at negotiations table amid waning Washington support

Venezuelan opposition to face regime at negotiations table amid waning Washington support

 

Opposition leaders will meet representatives of the Nicolás Maduro regime in México on Friday for a new round of negotiations aiming to end Venezuela’s political crisis, but the gathering seems skewed in favor of the rulers in Caracas, as their adversaries will attend visibly weakened amid signs that the country no longer holds Washington’s attention.

By Miami Herald – Antonio María Delgado and Michael Wilner

Sep 01, 2021

The opposition’s weakness is evident by the shifting of its aims, observers said, which have changed from getting Maduro to immediately step down from power to getting access to the upcoming regional elections.

That change shows Juan Guaidó’s diminished influence inside the country. While he is still recognized by the United States and other countries as the legitimate president of Venezuela, his agenda has increasingly been challenged by other opposition groups more interested in participating at the ballot box in municipal and state races than in an all-out effort to remove Maduro, analysts said.

“What’s on the table here [in México] is the conditions for these state and local elections, plus other things that the regime wants — namely getting access to some of the money overseas and getting some of the sanctions lifted,” Elliott Abrams, former U.S. Special Representative to Venezuela, said.

“If this election turns out to be a complete fiasco, as is completely plausible, that will be a very bad start for those who think elections are the way to remove Maduro,” Abrams told McClatchy in an interview.

Abrams, who for two years spearheaded the Trump administration’s efforts to exert diplomatic pressure on Maduro, argues that the Biden administration is not paying as much attention to Venezuela, weakening the opposition’s chances at the negotiating table.

Washington should be playing a much more active role in facing Maduro and should be demanding a seat at the table in México, he said.

“Under the previous administration, there was a special representative to Venezuela with an office, with a staff, and there was an Office of Venezuelan Affairs in the Latin America bureau. Now, the special representative office has been disbanded, and last week the Venezuela office was disbanded,” Abrams said. “All of this is a reduction in attention – a reduction in energy. Now who is going to represent the United States in Mexico City?”

Another sign of Washington’s waning influence at the negotiating table: Guaidó’s diplomatic representative to Washington, Carlos Vecchio, was removed from the opposition’s negotiating team amid the regime’s insistence that he was too radical.

The opposition has so far given in unilaterally to a series of demands introduced by the regime. That in itself is a sign of weakness, but removing Vecchio is particularly damaging for Maduro’s adversaries at the table, said Antonio De La Cruz, executive director of Washington-based consultancy firm Inter American Trends.

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