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Venezuelan opposition leader says talks with Maduro unlikely
CARACAS, Jan 12, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Venezuela’s opposition leader and self-
declared acting president Juan Guaido said Saturday it is unlikely he will
resume negotiations with President Nicolas Maduro.
Guaido this week survived dramatic attempts to remove him as head of the
National Assembly, and called new protests to try to drive out the leftist
Maduro, who is overseeing an economy in free fall and accused of acting like
a dictator.
“It’s not that we don’t want a negotiation. It’s that we see it as just so
highly unlikely. We have been duped over and over,” Guaido said in a speech
to supporters in Caracas. Aides to Maduro and Guaido held negotiations last
year under mediation by Norway but both sides accused each other of breaking
terms, and the talks stopped in August.
Just Friday, Guaido’s aides said a Norwegian government commission would
arrive here within hours. But they also stressed that the negotiation process
was over.
Guaido’s apparent refusal to resume dialogue followed a new US drive
toward diplomacy, almost a year after the US declared Maduro illegitimate and
recognized Guaido as interim president.
“Negotiations could open the path out of the crisis through a transitional
government that will organize free and fair elections,” Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo said.
Maduro won a new term in 2018 in elections that were widely criticized
internationally as fraudulent, and new presidential polls are not due until
2024.
But elections must take place in 2020 for the National Assembly, the only
institution controlled by the opposition — and which the United States and
more than 50 other countries see as bringing legitimacy to Guaido.
Millions of Venezuelans have fled a collapsing economy, in which they are
no longer able to find or afford basic staples.
But despite the humanitarian catastrophe and biting US sanctions, Maduro
maintains power with the support of the military as well as Russia, China and
Cuba.
After failing at ousting Maduro in 2019, claiming to have “tried
everything,” Guaido’s popularity fell to 38.9 percent in December after
reaching a peak of 63 percent, pollsters Datanalisis say.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0832 hrs