Venezuela’s Opposition Split Over Election Boycott

  Greg Wilpert and Temir Porras Temir Porras, a former advisor to Venezuelan Presidents Chavez and Maduro, argues that the opposition's division over boycotting the upcoming parliamentary election could end up marginalizing the extreme-right opposition faction and thus lead to a normalization of politics in Venezuela. Hosted by Greg Wilpert, author of "Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, The History and Policies of the Chavez Government". Transcript Gregory WilpertWelcome to theAnalysis.news podcast, I'm your host, Greg Wilpert. I'm doing a series of interviewsabout the current situation in Latin America at the moment. Last week, I spoke to Kathryn Ledebur inBolivia. Today, I want to turn our attention to Venezuela. Those who have followed my reporting onLatin America will know that I have covered Venezuela extensively, having lived there for about eightyears, written a book about the Chavez presidency, and also having co-founded the websitevenezuelanalysis.com back in 2003, 17 years ago now, which continues to publish news and analysis inEnglish about Venezuela from the perspective of progressive social movements in Venezuela.After a fairly tumultuous 2019, when the Trump administration decided to support a parallelgovernment, Venezuela, led by the president of the parliament at the time, Juan Guaidó, Venezuela hasnot been in the news that much recently. This does not mean, though, that nothing has been happeningin Venezuela. Rather, the political and economic situation there remains extremely tense, especiallyunder the conditions of the coronavirus pandemic. The Trump administration, under the guidance ofSecretary of State Colin Powell and a special Venezuelan adviser, Elliott Abrams, has continued totighten U.S. sanctions on Venezuela.The sanctions have even reached the point that the US is confiscating gasoline shipments heading forVenezuela, something that under different circumstances could be considered an act of piracy, exceptthat it happens purely via economic pressure on tankers and insurance companies.Joining me now to discuss the current situation and also how Venezuela got to its current point is TemirPorras. Temir was an adviser to both President Hugo Chávez and to the current president, NicolásMaduro. Temir resigned though shortly after Maduro's election in 2013. He currently teaches at SciencePo in Paris as a visiting professor. Thanks for joining me today, Temir. Temir PorrasThanks for having me, Greg. Gregory WilpertSo let's start with the current situation before we take a look back at how Venezuela got to this point.Some interesting things are going on at the moment. First of all, there's a new parliamentary electionscheduled for December sixth of this year. The last election, which took place five years ago in 2015,resulted in a pretty overwhelming majority for the opposition. Now, this time around, the oppositiongoes into this election actually very divided. The more hard-line sectors around self-declared presidentJuan Guaidó are calling for a boycott and the presumably more moderate factions of the opposition,which include former opposition presidential candidates, Henrique Capriles and Henri Falcón are callingfor participation.Also as a goodwill gesture, President Maduro recently pardoned 110 opposition figures who had beenaccused of trying to violently overthrow the government. Now, meanwhile, the coronavirus is graduallyaffecting Venezuela more and more. Originally, Venezuela had one of the lowest infection rates, it still does actually compared to the rest of Latin America, but the daily case rate is now over 1000 per day onaverage. What I want to ask is, what's the significance of the parliamentary elections that are coming upfor the political situation i...