{"id":4510,"date":"2019-02-09T15:21:46","date_gmt":"2019-02-09T14:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/?p=4510"},"modified":"2019-03-12T14:56:58","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T13:56:58","slug":"were-almost-there-venezuela-libre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/2019\/02\/09\/were-almost-there-venezuela-libre\/","title":{"rendered":"We’re almost there!! Venezuela Libre!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Blogger: Tomas Blanco Velazquez<\/p>\n

Even a broken clock will be right twice a day\u2026 this is the case of Donald Trump with the situation in Venezuela. For the first time in many years, there is a real possibility for change, and hardline leftists in the US need to let the Venezuelan Opposition execute their plan for regime change. Or just come out and support Maduro, it\u2019s what they\u2019re doing anyway\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

How did we get here?<\/span><\/p>\n

President in Charge, Juan Guaid\u00f3, was elected to the National Assembly (AN) in 2015, when the Opposition won 56% of votes (vs 40% for Government). However, the AN was rendered powerless by a Supreme Court which is 100% supportive of Maduro and lead by a convicted murderer, Maikel Moreno.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In 2018 Maduro illegally called for early elections in May in order to avoid the growing crisis negatively impacting his campaign if it was done in October, as legally required. The Electoral Council allowed this, given that its President, Tibisay Lucena, is a long-term ally of the regime. The Opposition decided not to participate, and many countries did not recognize the elections which Maduro \u201cwon\u201d and would have been inaugurated in this \u201cnew\u201d mandate on January 10<\/span>th<\/sup><\/span>, 2019, when his former mandate ended.<\/span><\/p>\n

On January 5<\/span>th<\/sup><\/span>, Guaid\u00f3 was elected as President of the National Assembly and declared that since the election in 2018 was fraudulent, Maduro could not assume a new mandate on January 10<\/span>th<\/sup><\/span>, and as a result there would be a \u201cpower vacuum\u201d once Maduro\u2019s previous mandate ended. Given the power vacuum and citing pertinent clauses of the Constitution (which state that in case of a power vacuum the President of the National Assembly would become President of Venezuela), Guaid\u00f3 declared that he was the Interim President. With clear legal arguments and help from allied governments and representatives of the Opposition in exile, this plan has been forming for over a year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether you agree with the legal arguments depends on your political views. Leftist presidents recognize Maduro: Evo Morales, Lopez Obrador, also China, Russia, Iran, and Syria\u2026 On the other side we have Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, the EU, and the USA.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like Trump. I am very familiar with the political situation in the US and I am afraid of the long-term impacts he might have. Still, I am thankful for this support of the Venezuelan Opposition. When you are drowning, you don\u2019t care who throws the life-vest.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s popular to scream \u201cNO Imperialist Intervention!\u201d. After all, the US\u2019s interventions in the region during the Cold War were real and had clear negative effects. Sadly, the current situation is much more complex.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Maduro is an abusive husband and Venezuelans are the battered wife. It\u2019s easy to say \u201cDon\u2019t intervene! Domestic violence is an internal matter between husband and wife\u2026\u201d and friends of the husband will agree\u2026 they do not care about the wife because they are doing business with the husband.<\/span><\/p>\n

Only now, the wife managed to call other neighbors! And even the blond gringo that no one likes showed up\u2026 they are at the door, and the friends of the husband, hearing the violence, still say \u201cDon\u2019t intervene! This is an internal matter!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It is not.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Government-caused crisis in Venezuela, became international the moment Chavez started \u201cdonating\u201d Venezuela\u2019s money to help elect Evo Morales, Cristina Kirchner, Daniel Ortega, and \u201cinvesting\u201d in Caribbean island-nations as soon as he came into power. Every time the situation in Venezuela became too violent for the region to ignore, the OAS would debate and countries like Bolivia, Nicaragua, and those Caribbean nations would vote to do nothing in Venezuela in support of the regime. Arriving at the current state of affairs in Venezuela took time, money and a lot of support from the regional allies of the Revolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cBut Trump only wants Venezuela\u2019s oil!!!\u201d. No, the US already \u201chas\u201d Venezuela\u2019s oil. Chavez\/Maduro have never stopped selling oil to the US. Not when the US invaded Afghanistan or Iraq, or bombed Libya, Syria or Yemen. Directly or indirectly, Bolivarian oil made, and still makes its way to the US Army\u2019s vehicles.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have not been following the situation in Venezuela for years, worried about your family there, reading the news in 2002, 2006, 2012, 2014, 2017, 2018\u2026 what can you say in 2019? If you\u2019re not going to help bring positive change in Venezuela, at least don\u2019t help Maduro.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Have you not read the stories of torture in the Government prisons? Lack of food, malnutrition, and disease? Venezuelan refugee camps in Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador? Are you aware that Maduro has repeatedly rejected humanitarian aid? And now that we are so close to getting Maduro out\u2026 you\u2019re against it?<\/span><\/p>\n

Enough. Venezuela does not deserve to be the guinea pig of socialism any more. It didn\u2019t work, move on.<\/span><\/p>\n

No, I do not want a US military invasion of Venezuela. However, I thank, we thank, all the international pressure being applied on Maduro and the other criminals of his regime.<\/span><\/p>\n

We’re almost there!! Venezuela Libre!!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tomas Blanco is a second year MBA student at IESE Business School in Barcelona<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomas Blanco Velazquez is a second year MBA student at IESE Business School in Barcelona. He sent me his views on the current situation in Venezuela.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":788,"featured_media":4511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26749],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-geopolitics"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4510"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4516,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4510\/revisions\/4516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}