Juan Guaidó, image courtesy of asambleanacionalvenezuela.org

By Henrique Arevalo

On 30 December 2022, the opposition-controlled National Assembly of Venezuela voted against renewing Juan Guaidó’s mandate as President of the National Assembly and, thus, as President of Venezuela. Guaidó’s presidency officially concluded on 4 January 2023, marking an end to the so-called Venezuelan presidential crisis and cementing Nicolás Maduro’s grip on power.

Guaidó has been widely covered by international media, which has often referred to him as a ‘self-appointed president’ or simply an ‘opposition leader’. Those occupying the more extreme sides of the political spectrum have instead referred to him as a ‘coup leader’ or ‘puppet of the American government’. Regardless of one’s opinion about Juan Guaidó, the situation in Venezuela, American foreign policy or Latin American politics, the fact of the matter is that Juan Guaidó was the legitimate President of Venezuela.

Let me tell you why.

Who is Juan Guaidó?

Juan Guaidó was born on 28 July 1983 in the small port city of La Guaira, Vargas. In 1999, the year Hugo Chávez became President of Venezuela, his hometown was severely damaged by mudslides, and his family chose to relocate to Caracas. Whilst Guaidó set out to study engineering in Caracas, he quickly became involved in political activism, triggered by Chávez’s closure of the popular private broadcaster Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) in 2007.

As one of the leaders of the student movement ‘Generation 2007’, Guaidó helped establish Voluntad Popular (VP - Popular Will), a “progressive, democratic, and plural” opposition party founded by Leopoldo López in 2009. The novelty and left-wing nature of the party, coupled with his humble background, made Maduro's efforts to paint Guaidó as a right-wing establishment politician fairly ineffective.

In 2010, VP joined the opposition coalition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD - Democratic Unity Roundtable), which brought together a broad range of parties united in their opposition to the authoritarian tendencies of Chávez’s government. That year, the MUD won 65 seats to Chávez’s 98 in the National Assembly elections. VP received just one seat, and Guaidó was only elected as an alternate representative. Five years later, he was elected as a congressman for the state of Vargas in the critical 2015 National Assembly elections.

Road to the Presidency: the 2015 National Assembly and the non-existent 2018 Presidential elections

In what is considered as the last free and fair elections in Venezuela, MUD won a supermajority in the 2015 National Assembly elections, taking over 56% of the vote to the government's 40%, and 112 out of 167 seats. As part of the coalition agreement, member parties agreed to rotate the Presidency of the National Assembly – a figure equivalent to the Speaker of the House – between the leaders of the most-voted parties in MUD. Being the fourth largest party in the coalition, VP was to hold the presidency in the 2019-2020 legislative period.

Losing control of the National Assembly was deemed by many not only as a massive blow to the chavista movement but also a severe constraint for the government, as the legislature was meant to check and balance the power of the government. However, even before the Assembly was sworn-in in January 2016, the chavista government began taking action to strip the legislature from its power.

In an unprecedented ‘lame duck’ session, the outgoing government-controlled National Assembly packed the Supreme court with loyalists, which, in the following months, blocked the new Assembly’s decisions and allowed the government to rule by decree. In 2017, the government created its own parallel legislature: the Constituent National Assembly. This body was unlawfully established to draft a new constitution, which has yet to be written, but was utilised to rubber-stamp the government’s laws and circumvent the opposition. By 2018, this body had virtually taken the role of the National Assembly.

By the time it was VP’s turn to take over the battered and powerless National Assembly, the party's known leaders were gone. Leopoldo López, the party’s founder, was imprisoned for participating in the 2014 anti-government protests. Freddy Guevara, the leader of VP in the legislature, lived under asylum at the residence of the Chilean ambassador in Caracas after the government ordered his arrest in November 2017. As a result, by 2018, Guaidó had become the highest-ranking member of his party in the Assembly and the next-in-line for the Presidency of the National Assembly, a role which he assumed on 05 January 2019.

Article 228. The election of the President of the Republic shall be by free, universal, direct and secret ballot, in accordance with the law.

To best understand what took place in the weeks after Guaidó became President of the National Assembly, we must look back at the 2012 Presidential Elections. President Hugo Chávez was re-elected for a fourth term in October 2012 for the 2013-2019 Presidential term. His inauguration was meant to take place on 10 January 2010, but he was unable to attend as he was receiving cancer treatment in Cuba. Chávez died three months later, and elections were held one month after. Then-Vice-President Nicolás Maduro was controversially declared the winner of the election and was elected to finish the remainder of the 2013-2019 Presidential term.

Five years later, as Maduro was starting his sixth and final year as president, elections were expected to be held in October 2018. However, Maduro’s Constituent Assembly brought forward the elections to May. Given the lack of democratic guarantees, the opposition boycotted the unlawful poll. The only challengers to Maduro were a former chavista governor of a province in northern Venezuela Henri Falcón, and an evangelist pastor Javier Bertucci. Unsurprisingly, Maduro claimed victory, with 68% of the votes and a turnout of 45%. Reuters and local watchdogs estimated turnout to have been between 22% and 30% per cent. Russia, China, Syria, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, and Bolivia were among the few countries that recognised Maduro’s victory. Most countries in the region and the Organisation of American States (OAS) did not recognise the validity of the sham vote.

By the time October 2018 came, the electoral commission, which was under Maduro’s control, ignored calls from the National Assembly to organise elections, and Venezuela headed into the new year without having elected a new president. After all, Maduro was still serving as the de jure President of Venezuela for the 2013-2019 Presidential term, which was set to end on 10 January 2019.

Interim President Guaidó

On 10 January 2019, despite domestic and international calls not to do so, Maduro swore himself as President for the 2019-2025 term. Despite this, by independent accounts, Venezuela did not have a democratically elected President. Article 233 of the Constitution states that “in the event of the absence of an elected President (...) the President of the National Assembly shall be in charge of the Presidency of the Republic” until new elections are held. As Maduro’s term elapsed, de jure executive power fell into the President of the National Assembly, who at that time happened to be Guaidó.

On 11 January, the National Assembly declared Maduro to be a ‘usurper’ and called on the Venezuelan military and foreign governments to recognise Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. Shortly after, Guaidó began work to establish an interim government. On 23 January, the anniversary of the fall of Venezuela’s last dictator in 1958, Guaidó was sworn in as the 49th President of Venezuela. In a speech given that day, Guaidó stated that his presidency had three key priorities: end the usurpation, form a transitional government, and hold free elections.

Over 60 countries, including the vast majority of Latin America and Europe, recognised Guaidó as President of Venezuela, while merely a dozen recognised Maduro as such. Domestically, polls showed that 82% of Venezuelans recognised Guaidó as president, whilst only 13% saw Maduro that way. Ultimately, the balance of power rested with the Venezuelan military, which did not switch its support from Maduro to Guaidó.

Over the course of three years, Guaidó and the opposition attempted to reach those three goals and oust Maduro. However, as history now proves, his presidency was unsuccessful. Guaidó’s attempts at attracting domestic military support failed, and international sanctions did not weaken Maduro. The COVID-19 pandemic strengthened the state's role in society and, simultaneously, Maduro’s legitimacy domestically. Guaidó’s approval fell as his presidency stalled and hopes of a regime change dissipated.

By 2022, Guaidó was left with no authority or influence, and the very same opposition that had favoured his presidency in 2019 voted not to renew his mandate as President.

That being said, Guaidó’s presidency was indeed legitimate and rightful. One only needs to read Article 350 of the Constitution of Venezuela, as set forth by Chavez himself, which states that “the people of Venezuela, faithful to its republican tradition, to its struggle for independence, peace and freedom, must disown any regime, legislation or authority that contravenes democratic values, principles and safeguards or undermines human rights.”

Henrique Arevalo is a King’s College London graduate currently working as a Senior Associate at Highgate CEO and Sovereign Advisory. He was President of KCL LATAM (2019-2021) and co-founder of El Cortao’.

Setting the record straight: Who is Juan Guaidó, and how did he become President of Venezuela in the first place?