¿Quién es el Presidente Legítimo de Venezuela Hoy?

Graphic of nations recognizing Guaidó (dark blue) as rightful President of Venezuela or voicing support for the Venezuelan National Assembly’s action to declare him interim President (lighter blue); those recognizing Maduro are shown in orange. Venezuela is shown in black; nations explicitly and publicly expressing neutrality are in dark grey. Nations in light grey have taken no public position on the matter.

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Well, the question posed above actually may be a damn good question. Because if international recognition is any indicator, the answer might not be ”Maduro el maldito bastardo comunista incompetente” for much longer.

Background, short version: last May, Maduro held an “election” in Venezuela. That election was widely regarded as a sham; many opposition parties were banned, and it’s generally regarded to have been rigged to provide PR justification for Maduro’s continuing illegitimate dictatorship.

Maduro was “inaugurated” for the second time as Venezuela’s “President” on 10 January. Within minutes, the OAS declared Maduro illegitimate and called for new elections.

A few days later, Venezuela’a National Assembly also broke with Maduro. On 15 January, they declared Maduro to have usurped the Presidency of Venezuela. An opposition leader – Juan Guaidó, the President of the National Assembly – was recognized to be interim President of Venezuela. He was sworn in on 23 January.

On 23 January, the US recognized Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate President. The OAS President – and 16 OAS nations – recognized Guaidó on 24 January.

All members of the Lima Group (13 member states in North and South America) except for Mexico have since also recognized Guaidó as Venezuela’s President; several other nations worldwide have done the same. And as of last week, nineteen European nations – including a number of non-EU states – have followed suit.

And, finally, although the Vatican State has remained publically neutral the Catholic Church in Venezuela released the following statement on 15 January (original in Spanish; what follows is a translated excerpt from Wikipedia):

“The Church in Venezuela, united to its Bishops in communion with the Pope, declare the socialist-communist regime illegitimate and stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan people to rescue democracy, freedom, and justice. Trusting in God, they support the National Assembly”.

The graphic above shows the nations supporting Guaidó and Maduro, along with those expressing explicit neutrality and those who have not yet taken a public position. A text description of “who’s supporting whom” today can be found here.

Yeah, Maduro still has the Venezuelan Army’s backing – at least, publicly. For now. And Cuba reputedly has a number of security forces currently deployed to Venezuela to prop up Maduro’s shaky regime.

But even the support of Venezuela’s armed forces has been called into question. Some Venezuelan Generals have broken with Maduro, with one estimating that “90% are with the National Assembly”.

Maduro will of course do whatever he likes. But IMO if Maduro wants to avoid an end similar to Ceaucescu’s he’d be best advised to leave pronto – and use some of those siphoned funds that he’s almost certainly gotten stashed in various numbered offshore accounts to live in luxury for whatever years he has left.

And IMO he should also start figuring out what he’s going to tell the Deity after he passes. Because IMO he’s really gonna have “some ‘splainin to do” regarding his actions lately.

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