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The US Should Focus on Democracy at Home, Not in Venezuela
This is not to say the Venezuelan government is perfect nor to endorse the fairness of last month's election. But let's be clear: Venezuelan political disputes should be settled by Venezuelans, not by the United States.
Aug 18, 2024
There is now widespread controversy surrounding the Venezuelan presidential election on July 28th. The National Electoral Council says that current President Nicolás Maduro was reelected with a 51% majority. The opposition, led by Maria Corina Machado, claims that its candidate, Edmundo González, won with an overwhelming majority of the votes cast. The primary questions being asked in the media are “who really won?” and even “how can Maduro be made to step aside?”
Instead the question US observers should be asking is, “what business is this of ours?”
The United States government constantly criticizes elections around the world that it deems to be undemocratic. It claims to support an “international rules based order” and maintain a foreign policy with human rights at its center. But the United States of America isn’t exactly a fair arbiter. It is without question the most hyper-interventionist country in the history of the world. It has repeatedly intervened in the internal affairs of governments it doesn’t like, often invading and overthrowing them, ostensibly, for the cause of democracy. It does not, however, criticize the antidemocratic behavior of its allies, like apartheid Israel or the absolute monarchy that rules Saudi Arabia. As in Orwell’s famous novel, America may claim that all animals are equal. But it’s clear that it believes some animals are more equal than others.
On July 27th, a day before the Venezuelan election, the People’s Forum, a New York City movement incubator, released a letter warning that, “a Western media narrative is already being spun to present the election as inevitably fraudulent – and pave the way for a new regime change operation if the right-wing opposition does not prevail at the ballot box.”
That letter has come under criticism for asserting that, “the campaign has seen energetic participation all across the country and vigorous, democratic debate,” and that since 2002, “Venezuela has held over 30 elections that have been conducted professionally and impartially.” In the days after the most recent election international organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a fact-finding mission from the United Nations have disagreed, citing reports of politically motivated arrests, assaults, intimidation, and even deaths. The governments of Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil are calling for more transparency.
But the credibility of Venezuela’s elections should not be the main issue in question. The main issue is that criticism is used as an excuse to promote US intervention and regime change or to justify more deadly sanctions that kill Venezuelan people. True to form, on Thursday August 1st the U.S. State Department announced that it recognized González as the winner.
In one egregious example of media promoting intervention, a July 31st editorial in the Boston Globe called on the Biden Administration to intervene, saying, “It’s in U.S. interests for the Biden Administration to help deliver the regime change Venezuelans have voted for.” It endorsed the policy of former President Donald Trump, suggesting that President Biden should revive the office of special representative to Venezuela and later quoted the man who held that office under Trump, Elliott Abrams.
But it failed to provide extremely important context about Mr. Abrams. In 1991 Elliott Abrams, who still serves in government, pled guilty to two counts of lying to the US Congress about his knowledge of the Iran-Contra affair, a secret deal to illegally sell arms to Iran and use the proceeds to fund right-wing militias trying to overthrow the left wing government of Nicaragua. Congress had explicitly forbidden military assistance for the purpose of overthrowing the Nicaraguan government. A man who was deeply involved in the attempted overthrow of a Central American government is not a credible voice on Venezuelan democracy.
The United States has a terrible record when it comes to supporting self determination, globally, in Latin America, and in Venezuela specifically. The U.S. has interfered with the affairs of Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia, Venezuela, and more. Focusing on Venezuela alone there are multiple instances of interference just in the 21st century.
In 2002 the Bush Administration sanctioned a coup attempt against Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez. In March of 2015 the Obama Administration unilaterally levied harsh economic sanctions on Venezuela. President Obama declared that Venezuela posed an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” The effects of such sanctions, and even more punitive ones imposed by the Trump Administration, were studied by the Government Accountability Office in 2021. They found that the sanctions have already killed tens of thousands of people in Venezuela, due to restricted access to food and medicine.
In 2019 the Trump Administration recognized 35 year old opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela, despite the fact that he never ran for the office. They then handed over control on Venezuela’s assets in the United States to Guaidó, a move that the New York Times called, “one of Washington’s most overt attempts in decades to carry out regime change in Latin America.”
Given the exhaustive record of U.S. interference and intervention in the politics of Latin American countries, it’s just common sense to be skeptical about pronouncements from Washington regarding Venezuela’s election. That’s asking the fox's opinion on the management of the henhouse. To be clear, this is not to say that the Venezuelan government is perfect or to endorse the fairness of the July 28th election. It is to say that Venezuelan political disputes should be settled by Venezuelans, not by the United States.
With its own presidential election less than three months away, the U.S. has enough on its plate. The recent history of presidential elections in the United States is less than stellar. Two of the last six presidential elections were won by the candidate who received less votes (George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald J. Trump in 2016). In 2000 Bush had a co-chair of his campaign purge 173,000 voters from voting rolls as Florida Secretary of State, in a key election decided by 500 votes. Trump tried to stay in power after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden. His followers famously stormed the Capitol Building in an effort to stop the certification of that election on January 6th 2021.
The bottom line? We have authoritarianism at home. When it comes to taking action abroad to “defend democracy” America would do well to adhere to the motto recommended by Founding Grandfather Benjamin Franklin: “Mind your business.”
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Ecuador's Right-Wing President Dissolves Congress to 'Stave Off Impeachment'
The head of the Andean nation's largest Indigenous rights group accused President Guillermo Lasso of launching a "cowardly self-coup" and pushing the country toward an "imminent dictatorship."
May 17, 2023
Days before Ecuadorian lawmakers were expected to vote on removing him from office, Guillermo Lasso, Ecuador's deeply unpopular right-wing president, dissolved the country's National Assembly, a move progressive critics called a bid to avoid impeachment.
For the first time ever, Lasso invoked Article 148 of the Ecuadorian Constitution, which gives presidents the power to dissolve the legislature under certain circumstances, including legislative overreach and a "severe political crisis and domestic unrest."
The move, popularly known as "muerte cruzada"—"the death cross"—will allow Lasso to rule by decree for six months. It came a day after the president defended himself before lawmakers during an impeachment trial for allegedly turning a blind eye toward embezzlement.
"Not having the necessary votes to save himself from his imminent dismissal, Lasso launched a cowardly self-coup with the help of the police and the armed forces, without citizen support, becoming an imminent dictatorship," Leonidas Iza, head of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the country's largest Indigenous rights group, said in denouncing the move.
\u201c\ud83d\udea8 Muerte cruzada \ud83d\udea8 \n\nEcuador\u2019s President, Guillermo Lasso, just disbanded the National Assembly to stave off impeachment.\n\nWith Ecuador\u2019s largest Indigenous org and the opposition promising mass protests, unrest in Quito could get intense fast. \n\nI\u2019ll be updating periodically.\u201d— Will Freeman (@Will Freeman) 1684325328
As Will Freeman, Latin America specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations, explained last week:
The impeachment process originated in a scandal that erupted in January 2023. That month, Ecuadorian journalists denounced members of Lasso's inner circle for allegedly mismanaging public companies and maintaining ties to Albanian mafia groups that have come to dominate Ecuador's lucrative cocaine trafficking routes. The journalists say their information came from a police investigation, although Ecuador's attorney general has claimed the source material was doctored.
After the journalists published leaked audio clips corroborating aspects of their story, one top government appointee, Hernan Luque, became a fugitive from justice. Another businessman allegedly connected to the ring, Rubén Cherres, was found murdered. In March, a majority of Ecuador's National Assembly asked to start impeachment proceedings. Ecuador's Constitutional Court partially granted the request, allowing a vote on the corruption allegations to move forward.
Ousting Lasso from office would require the votes of 92 of the National Assembly's 137 members. The motion to proceed with the impeachment process received 88 votes.
\u201cA legislative coup now is underway in @LassoGuillermo's Ecuador, which @SecBlinken just recently "applauded" for its democratic values. "More than ever, Ecuador today shares the values that have guided the United States to prosperity since its founding," Blinken said. Indeed.\u201d— David Adler (@David Adler) 1684323931
Lasso denies both the corruption allegations and accusations that he dismissed lawmakers in order to derail the impeachment.
"Ecuador needs a new political and social pact that will allow it to get out of the political crisis in which it finds itself," Lasso said during a mandatory nationwide television and radio address, according to teleSUR. "We must move towards a solution that offers hope to families and puts an end to a useless and irrational confrontation."
Article 148 stipulates that the National Electoral Council (CNE) must call presidential and legislative elections within seven days of lawmakers' dismissal, although the electoral process is allowed to take up to six months.
\u201c#Ecuador | Citizens express their rejection of President Guillermo Lasso outside the National Assembly. They demand his dismissal.\n\u201d— teleSUR English (@teleSUR English) 1684258393
The CNE came under fire during the 2021 presidential election—in which Lasso, a former banker, defeated progressive economist Andrés Arauz—for trying to prevent Arauz from running by, among other things, banning his political party and then outlawing another party he tried to form.
Arauz wanted to have progressive former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa as his running mate, but the CNE banned him from the ticket. Electoral officials also blocked the Arauz campaign from using Correa's voice or image—but allowed Arauz's opponents to depict the former president in a negative manner.
Correa—who argued that what Lasso is doing is "illegal"—looms large during the current crisis. Although the former president fled Ecuador rather than face trial for what he claims are baseless corruption charges, he still controls the largest bloc of National Assembly lawmakers.
\u201cLo que Lasso hace es ilegal. Obviamente no hay ninguna \u00abconmoci\u00f3n interna\u00bb. Tan solo no pudo comprar suficientes asamble\u00edstas para salvarse.\nEn todo caso, es la GRAN oportunidad para librarnos de Lasso, de su Gobierno y de sus asamble\u00edstas de alquiler, y recuperar la Patria\u270a\ud83c\udffd\u201d— Rafael Correa (@Rafael Correa) 1684326089
Lasso wasted no time in exercising his new powers.
"Starting today, the national government will issue decrees that will comply with the mandate that you gave me," he said during his address to the public. "I have signed a first decree to reduce taxes on families. It will be sent to the Constitutional Court for its review."
The president promised that "public services will operate normally," and that "the armed forces and the police continue to guarantee security."
As Lasso spoke, state security forces surrounded the National Assembly building to block anyone from entering or leaving the legislature, teleSUR reported.
Nelson Proaño, head of the Ecuadorian military's Joint Command, delivered a brief Wednesday morning address to the nation in which he endorsed Lasso's invocation of Article 148.
\u201cNothing to see here, just Ecuador\u2019s armed forces deployed to enforce Guillermo Lasso\u2019s \u201ccross of death\u201d decree that dissolved the National Assembly in order to prevent his imminent impeachment\u2026\u201d— David Adler (@David Adler) 1684338991
"Therefore, it is subject to a constitutional norm and must be fully and completely respected by all citizens," Proaño asserted. "I wish to remind Ecuadorians that the armed forces and the National Police are obedient and nondeliberative institutions and we fulfill our mission strictly abiding by the Constitution."
Freeman wrote last week that "Ecuador is likely headed for a period of increased instability."
"Given the acute challenges Ecuador is already facing—from surging crime to mass migration to a weak economy—that is something ordinary Ecuadorians can hardly afford," he added.
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