I agree. The question is, what business is it of the US? What track record does the US have for bringing stable democracy to South or Central America?
For what it’s worth, the US State Department cites article 233 of the Venezuela Constitution for Guaido’s legitimacy.
Here’s Article 233:
Article 233 : The President of the Republic shall become permanently unavailable to serve by reason of any of the following events: death; resignation; removal from office by decision of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice; permanent physical or mental disability certified by a medical board designated by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice with the approval of the National Assembly; abandonment of his position, duly declared by the National Assembly; and recall by popular vote.
When an elected President becomes permanently unavailable to serve prior to his inauguration, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days. Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the President of the National Assembly shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.
When the President of the Republic becomes permanently unavailable to serve during the first four years of this constitutional term of office, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days. Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the Executive Vice-President shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.
In the cases describes above, the new President shall complete the current constitutional term of office. If the President becomes permanently unavailable to serve during the last two years of his constitutional term of office, the Executive Vice-President shall take over the Presidency of the Republic until such term is completed.
So, Guaido clearly has authority if any of the conditions in the first clause have been met. The question is, have they been met?
It’s so awesome to see someone backing the authoritarian dictator here.
It doesn’t matter. The OAS is against him. Hell, Maduro already started the process of withdrawing from the OAS. Maduro’s the bad guy. Trump’s a buffoon, but his actions here are not incorrect.
It’s amazing how often you reach for a logical fallacy — usually ad hominem — in your arguments here. I’m not backing a dictator. I’m hoping Guaido is a good actor and that he succeeds. I’m talking about unwarranted US interference in Latin America.
I meet Venezuelan refugees literally every day here. I’m on their side.
This, absolutely.
It’s not really a dictatorship, as Maduro is just one of the Bolivarian elite, the figurehead and without the cult of personality Chavez had. Can an entire group be a dictatorship? Im just quibbling over words tho, doesnt make any difference.
Eh, well a group dictatorship would technically be an authoritarian ogligarchy, I suppose. But I also suspect this is just because he’s not fully consolidated power to the extent that Chavez did.
Nah, this is our back yard. Simply pretending like it doesn’t matter to us is foolish.
We should openly support the democratic forces against an authoritarian regime.
Aha, you’ve done half my job for me! :P
It looks like the National Assembly made a due declaration of abandonment of duties in early 2017. The Supreme Court gave Maduro cover to ignore it.
Ah, that’s helpful, thanks. So Guaido is on fairly firm legal ground.
Of note:
Party of European Socialists is a coalition of socialist groups around the world with one common cause - progressive politics - and included within PES is Socialist International, which the opposition in Venezuela (A New Era and Popular Will) are backed and affiliated to - the two parties who are affiliated with SI have more seats than the largest party in the rainbow coalition.
Socialist International have issued this statement on Venezuela:
http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=2528
The nice thing about standing on principle is you don’t have to take sides or even make snippy comments about coups to feed a social media machine.
You just apply the same principles to every situation. Simple.
That said, it’s hard to get worked up about a declaration of support for a viable alternative leadership that seems to have at least some legal basis. We do so much other dumb shit that this hardly registers.
And this isn’t something that Trump is doing on his own, against the rest of the western world. The US is taking the same position as Canada, the overall OAS, and a bunch of other western democracies.
Yep, this is key. I was very suspicious until I learned that Canada and much of the west had made the same choice. I do trust Freeland to make reasonable decisions.
How odd for us to be aligned with our traditional allies on something.
This was shocking to me as well. Trump joined Canada and other allies in condemning a dictator. I honestly would have expected the opposite, so I’m not sure what’s going on here.
We will eventually find out that Maduro nationalized something Trump owned down there.
Yep.
Or… he needs to prep an easy invasion to bolster those polls sometime later this year. Attacking Iran could be a world-changing disaster. But Venezuela would be a pushover, an easy win and make him a lovable war hero or something.
If Trump was smart, he’d let his foreign policy people handle all this so he could have a win.
But… he’s an idiot and his foreign policy people barely even exist and includes John Nuke Everyone Bolton. So pray this just gets overlooked instead of turned into a complete shitshow that leads to war.
Trump doesn’t really have any foreign policy people at this point.
He’s got Bolton and Pompeo, but there have been rumors of Pompeo leaving. And the whole state department is basically operating with a skeleton crew.
Yeah, that was kind of the point of my second line. So we’re down to praying he loses interest.
At least until the Russians show up.