Diego Arria, a former ambassador to the United Nations and former governor of the Federal District, assured that “the National Assembly has undermined Guaido’s role from day one when, in violation of the Constitution, he refused to appoint him interim president of Venezuela.”

“The four political parties controlling the Assembly did not want an independent Guaidó, and went on to create a parliamentary government with Guaido as head, but under his absolute command. This illegal procedure allowed them to become actually in charge of the interim government, use it as an employment agency for its members and appoint them to the boards of state companies such as Citgo, Monómeros and PDVSA, and as ambassadors and advisers, retaining Guaido as spokesperson, simply because without him they wouldn’t exist anymore,” Arria told The Dialogue, a media outlet specializing in political analysis of crises in the Western Hemisphere.

The former ambassador went on to say that a small number of representatives refused to separate legislative and executive powers, keeping Guaido as their second president. “On January 3 they continued to downplay his role, further subordinating him to them. Guaido does not oppose this decision, following the line of his own political party, despite the fact that he has promised to be free from political subordination to Leopoldo López and his party, the Voluntad Popular”.

According to him, the interim government does not need to protect Venezuelan assets abroad because “the United States government will protect those in its jurisdiction and the UK will protect the gold held in the Bank of England. Both are trustworthy and transparent, a stark contrast to Venezuela’s interim government.”

Venezuela’s former ambassador to the UK, Vanessa Neumann, shared Arría’s opinion, when she accused Julio Borges, the former National Assembly-appointed international relations commissioner who was elected in 2015, of conspiring against Juan Guaido for coming from a different party.

“There is great concern from the US government and the UK government that the G4 political parties will swap Guaido for someone else. In fact, efforts to do so are led by Guaido’s own foreign minister, Julio Borges, who has long disparaged the efforts of Guaido, his boss, because they belong to a rival party,” he said.

Similarly, he explained that what happened was due to the fact that the interim president was “too indebted to the coalition of parties that distributed the fake power cake among themselves before having any real territorial and institutional control powers; It’s not about real power, but access to sources of funding, from Citigo and bonds to international pro-democracy aid.”

For the former official, the purge of agents close to the politician was of paramount importance. “Although Guaido’s mandate needs to be and properly renewed, everything else must be removed, and a new bank made up of serious, clean and representative people should sit down and be seriously considered for the support of Venezuela and the international community.”

With information from Dialog.