Juan Guaido, Venezuela's National Assembly president, who is recognized by more than 50 countries as Venezuela's legitimate president, is under growing criticism at home and abroad after a series of major political setbacks.
Much of that criticism, however, is unfair.
Guaido was lambasted in social media this week after he confirmed an agreement between his opposition-led National Assembly and dictator Nicolas Maduro's regime to jointly seek international funds to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the agreement, the World Health Organization will be allowed to collect international funds for Venezuela.
But many in social media _ some of them hard-line oppositionists, but most likely Maduro government trolls posing as hard-line oppositionists _ accused Guaido of being a "traitor," "collaborationist" and leader of a "false opposition." The Maduro regime and its Cuban advisers have long tried to weaken popular support for Guaido by creating fake Twitter and Facebook pages attacking him for allegedly being too soft on Maduro.
The latest wave of criticism against Guaido came after a much more serious setback last month, when at a press conference Maduro displayed a contract that was allegedly signed by Guaido, two of his advisers and former U.S. Green Beret Jordan Goudreau.
The contract apparently paved the way for Goudreau's security firm's botched May 3 armed incursion into Venezuela to capture Maduro and take him to the United States, where he is wanted on drug-trafficking and terrorism charges. At least eight former Venezuelan soldiers were killed; others were arrested, including two former U.S. soldiers hired by Goudreau's security firm.
Guaido denies having signed the contract, but his two advisers confessed that they had signed it and resigned. Many believe that Guaido was at least aware of the plan and blame him for having been part of such a fiasco.
On May 25, Venezuela's attorney general charged that Guiado's party, Voluntad Popular, is a "terrorist organization" for its alleged involvement in the failed incursion. Maduro has declared Guaido a "fugitive from justice."
In addition, Guaido's hold on the National Assembly is under threat. Maduro plans to convene legislative elections this year under rules designed to crush the opposition majority.
The opposition won the December 2015 elections by a landslide, but Maduro stripped it of most of its powers and later created an alternate pro-government constituent assembly to replace many of its functions.
More recently, Maduro engineered a bogus National Assembly election and appointed former opposition legislator Luis Parra, who turned against Guaido, as new National Assembly president. Most opposition legislators have remained loyal to Guaido, however. They have been chased out of the National Assembly building but continue assembling in other locations, or virtually.
Under attack from the government, Venezuelan hard-liners and regime stooges posing as opposition hard-liners, Guaido is facing his most difficult moment since becoming a national hero a few years ago.
But, as Colombian President Ivan Duque told me in an interview this week, much of the criticism against Guaido is misplaced.
"It hurts me to see analysts or opinion-makers judging Juan Guaido as if we were watching a boxing match" in which both Guaido and Maduro were fighting under equal conditions. They are not, the Colombian president told me.
"It has been a man like Juan Guaido's destiny to be faced with the worst dictatorship we've seen in Latin America's recent history, because Maduro is Latin America's equivalent of (former Serbian dictator Slobodan) Molosevic," Duque said.
"And Guaido, with only the power of his word, moving throughout the Venezuelan territory, with permanent threats against him and his family, has tried to summon the international community to support democracy," Duque added.
I agree. I respect Guaido, who has been physically attacked several times by paramilitary thugs, and had his family harassed by a bloody dictatorship.
Regardless of his recent setbacks, Guaido is the last democratically elected official in Venezuela _ and he may soon lose that position.
The opposition hard-liners who are attacking him are playing into the hands of Maduro's dictatorship. This is not an even-handed boxing match. Now, more than ever, Guaido deserves the support of all who want democracy restored in Venezuela.
