Juan Guaidó opens the door to negotiations with Nicolás Maduro by invoking a national salvation agreement

Juan Guaidó has presented today the road map of the majority democratic opposition in the face of what seems to be a dead end designed by the revolution. The bet of the president in charge is shaped around a “national salvation” agreement, which includes negotiating with Nicolás Maduro a schedule of free and fair elections, with international observation and support.

In return, the regime would obtain its main demand of the last months: the progressive lifting of sanctions, yes, conditional on the fulfillment of the indicated objectives.. The opposition proposes to the international community an “accountability mechanism” if the regime tries to evade a negotiated solution again, as has already happened in all previous negotiations.

The democratic forces would participate in the national salvation agreement (Guaidó cited the interim government, the legitimate National Assembly and the Unitary Platform, which integrates 40 political parties, unions and civil society), plus the “actors that make up and support the regime”. , both added to the international community, “especially the international powers”, in clear reference to the US, Europe, Russia and China, the latter two allies of the Bolivarian revolution.

In Guaidó's team they assure that he has already talked with the US and with part of the international community and that they all agree to support a “comprehensive negotiation process.”

“The salvation of Venezuela is the objective: free and fair elections are the fundamental step to achieve it and the national salvation agreement is the mechanism to achieve it.. We will only make it possible united and mobilized,” certified the leader, who specified that, as a starting point, “nobody trusts the dictatorship.”. Guaidó remains at the head of the legitimate National Assembly (AN) of 2015, in front of the revolutionary Parliament imposed last year by the Chavista hierarchs.

The agreement would include other points, such as the massive entry of humanitarian aid and vaccines against Covid, in addition to the release of all political prisoners, the return of exiles and the launch of a transitional justice process.

The agreement entails two key factors, unity and internal mobilization, which today seem almost impossible in the Venezuela of the pandemic, despite the fact that hundreds of small protests are registered every month.

Despite the proposal, Guaidó predicts that “the dictatorship will seek to continue creating parallel and partial negotiations, to give supposed conditions, divide the opposition and lower international pressure as it has done in the past.”

At present, Norway is the country that is working to bring both parties back to a negotiating table, with the support of a club of friends that includes the European Union (EU) and Spain, and to which they intend to join USA.

Chavismo proposes regional and municipal elections for the end of the year to further screw the 'son of Chávez' in power. Some elections in which part of the democratic opposition intends to participate to maintain the few mayoralties they have in their hands and add some governorships.

“They will seek to divide us with regional and municipal elections,” Guaidó advanced, but at the same time he has left the door open to evaluate all the scenarios and make the decision in Unity. “For those who see this milestone (local elections) as an opportunity, I tell them that they are counting on me to fight for real conditions that allow them to truly compete and for the Venezuelan to choose, not go into a trap,” he said.

In his speech, Guaidó harshly criticized those who “conspire with the dictatorship to legitimize each other as tyranny and real opposition,” in what appears to be a message addressed to Henrique Capriles.. The former presidential candidate agreed with the regime to form the new National Electoral Council (CNE), which has had three Chavismo militants and two opponents close to his theses since last week.

This closeness to the Bolivarian power “does not lead to freedom, but rather to submission and normalization of the worst tragedy,” Guaidó vehemently criticized. “The fundamental objective is to recover our democracy, not any agreement or negotiation that maintains what it is today. Everything the same, or change mirrors for some charges,” he insisted..

Without citing him, Capriles is the one alluded to when Guaidó cites “those who have already led the opposition for several years”. Until now, the president of the AN in 2015 had avoided the debate on the negotiations that Capriles is holding with the government and that have led to the imposition of a new National Electoral Council (CNE)..

Last week, Chavismo presented the new electoral body, made up of three militants of the revolutionary cause and two opponents close to Capriles' positions..

In recent days, Capriles has defended the CNE's “potable” agreement, as defined by Josep Borrell, number two of the European Union (EU), while maintaining his criticism of the presidency in charge and the deputies who support him, among whom are those of Primero Justicia, his party. All of them maintain, in their opinion, a “worn, stagnant rhetoric”, with a status quo “that only serves those who benefit from it”.

The former presidential candidate has the specific support of Josep Borrell, High Representative of the EU, and the Spanish Government, who are even seeking more support so that the toughest countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, stop recognizing Guaidó as interim president.. “Intelligent realism”, defended Cristina Gallach, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Spanish position regarding Venezuela.