In Washington, the Venezuelan Opposition Has Already Won
In Washington, D.C., Juan Guaidó and his representatives are feted as Venezuela’s only true leaders. But that’s far less of a reality in Caracas, where Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro remains entrenched in power.
Guaidó, who has rocketed from obscurity to renown in mere months, is now recognized as Venezuela’s interim president by more than 50 countries. It’s the culmination of a long, fitful effort by the country’s motley opposition—many of whom are presently imprisoned, in hiding, or in exile—to resist the authoritarian turn Maduro has taken since the death of his predecessor, the revolutionary socialist Hugo Chávez, in 2013.
Speaking with Guaidó’s emissary to the United States, I asked whether it was strange for him to think that if he hadn’t been forced into exile, he might be in Guaidó’s position right now.
“No. I am where I am,” Carlos Vecchio responded during one of two interviews with me, in May and June. He once planned to run for a seat in the legislature, and briefly took the reins of the Popular Will Party when its leader, Leopoldo López, was jailed in 2014. But he soon found himself evading a warrant for his own arrest by fleeing to Florida. Five years after he popped up on YouTube in a goatee and T-shirt during a 100-day sojourn underground, reading aloud from an undisclosed location a political manifesto written by López, the man sitting before me looked very much the dapper D.C. diplomat, in a dark suit and red tie, clean-shaven, hair gelled.
“No. I haven’t thought about it,” Vecchio reiterated. “Juan Guaidó has done a terrific job. He’s a great leader.”
One reason the 35-year-old Guaidó has his current position , when it was Popular Will’s turn to assume the rotating leadership of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, the most senior members of his party were all sidelined. In January, Maduro began another term after winning an widely considered to have been rigged. As their diplomatic recognition to Guaidó, who appointed Vecchio as his man in Washington—tasked with coordinating the international campaign to remove Maduro from power.
