Both sides in Venezuela's protracted political conflict are doubling down after abandoning Norwegian-sponsored negotiations aimed at finding a peaceful resolution to the standoff.
The opposition-controlled National Assembly today ratified Juan Guaido as president of the legislature and acting Venezuelan president until President Nicolas Maduro resigns or the legislature's five-year constitutional mandate ends on 5 January 2020.
The action was meant to blunt Maduro's launch yesterday of a dialogue with four small political parties that are outside the mainstream opposition coalition (MUD) headed by Guaido. The parties collectively hold just eight assembly seats out of a nominal 167.
Three lawmakers who belong to MUD parties, including Guaido's Voluntad Popular (VP) party, Accion Democratic (AD) and Primero Justicia (PJ), tell Argus that today's vote was meant to demonstrate continued confidence in Guaido after a string of political setbacks, including last week's photos of the young opposition leader alongside Colombian gangsters.
Today's vote was also intended to show a united front in the face of Maduro's efforts to divide his opponents through a "false dialogue" with marginal parties that are perceived as political "sell-outs".
"The individuals without followers who yesterday sold out to Maduro are not MUD members, and do not speak for Guaido, the elected assembly, the opposition and the people of Venezuela," an AD official said.
The four political figures participating in Maduro's new dialogue, including Timoteo Zambrano, Luis Augusto Romero, Felipe Mujica and Claudio Fermin, backed the candidacy of Henri Falcon in May 2018 presidential elections that were boycotted by the main opposition and almost 90pc of the electorate, and were rejected as fraudulent by most western governments that now recognize Guaido as Venezuela's interim president, rather than Maduro who was nominally re-elected for another six-year term.
Zambrano, a former senior member of the opposition Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) party who now leads the Cambiemos Movimiento Ciudadano (CMC) party, holds six seats in the assembly, and Romero is secretary general of Falcon's Avanzada Progresista (AP) party, which holds two seats in the assembly.
Mujica's Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party, founded in 1971 following a schism within the traditional AD party, has no assembly seats. The fourth politician, three-time losing presidential candidate Fermin, was expelled from AD in 2005 and now heads the marginal Soluciones Para Venezuela (SPS) party.
Maduro said yesterday that he also hopes to revive the Oslo-brokered Barbados talks that he called off on 8 August, three days after the US government escalated sanctions against state-owned oil company PdV and the government.
But Guaido confirmed overnight that the Barbados negotiations are dead because Maduro rejected opposition proposals first made last May in Norway that would see Guaido relinquish the acting presidency if Maduro were to resign and new elections held within nine months.
Guaido and his associates dismissed the new dialogue as phony because there are no legitimate opposition representatives at the table.
The US State Department today blamed the "refusal of the regime to negotiate in good faith" for the collapse of the Norway-sponsored talks. "Once again, the regime sees negotiations as a delaying tactic and has subverted good-faith efforts to find a peaceful political solution."
The EU, which has taken a softer line than Washington since Guaido declared his interim presidency in January 2019, said "any negotiated process [must have] the necessary political representativeness, the backing of the National Assembly, as well as the clear political objective of bringing the country to credible presidential elections."
"The EU reiterates its support to an inclusive, serious and results oriented process such as the one undertaken by Norway."
Maduro's new dialogue in any case already appears to be crumbling.
Falcon, who is close to Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodriguez, architect of a Venezuelan oil-for-food proposal, did not turn up at yesterday's ceremony to celebrate the "dialogue" and Maduro subsequently denounced him in televised remarks.
Falcon is promoting what he describes as a practical solutions to Venezuela's crisis and is vowing to fight Maduro's "nefarious government".
Julio Cesar Reyes, one of AP's two deputies, said the new talks are a "desperate action that seeks to undermine our unity and bestow legitimacy on those who have none."
The political maneuvering coincides with a sharp drop in Venezuelan oil production and exports, reflecting the impact of US financial and oil sanctions. The US expanded the sanctions regime today to include more targeted officials and entities associated with Maduro's attorney general Tarek William Saab.
