(Caracas) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom most observers and his supporters consider a candidate for a third term in 2024, assured Monday during a television interview that he did not know whether he would run for president.
“It’s still premature. The year has barely started. Only God knows. Not Diosdado (Diosdado Cabello), God. Let’s wait for the electoral scenarios […] I am sure that with the blessing of God we will make the best decision,” he said, making a play on words between God and former Vice President Diosdado (Dieudonné) Cabello often considered number 2 of Venezuelan power.
Diosdado Cabello, current vice-president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has already said several times that the PSUV has its candidate: Nicolas Maduro.
The government candidate should face former MP Maria Corina Machado in the second half of 2024 (date to be fixed), who won the opposition primary hands down and managed to bring together most of the heavyweights behind her.
She is currently ineligible, but she has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court as part of negotiations between the government and the opposition. Mme Machado was sanctioned with 15 years of ineligibility due to alleged corruption and for treason because she supported U.S. sanctions against Venezuela. Washington repeats that the cancellation of ineligibility is one of the conditions for the definitive lifting of sanctions.
PHOTO MATIAS DELACROIX, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Maria Corina Machado
Furthermore, President Maduro assured during the interview that power intermediary Alex Saab, released by the United States before Christmas, was not his “straw man” as Washington assures. “I’ve never had a straw man!” I have never had a bank account abroad. I have never had companies, properties, and I don’t want to have any in my life, ever…” he promises. “My relationships with national and international businessmen have been and are working relationships for the country. »
Alex Saab, described as a kingpin of Venezuela’s financial transactions abroad, is accused by American justice of having set up a system of embezzlement of food aid for the benefit of Mr. Maduro and his government. He was released in early December in a prisoner exchange with Caracas. He was arrested in June 2020 during a technical stopover in Cape Verde and extradited in October 2021 to the United States, which accused him of money laundering.
The president also returned once again to the dispute over the Essequibo with neighboring Guyana.
“We are going through a turbulent moment. Because Guyana is not acting as the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, but as “British Guiana”, accepting that a warship comes to its shores and threatens Venezuela,” said President Maduro who launched military exercises near the border involving more than 5,000 soldiers, after the announcement of the arrival of a British warship in Guyanese waters.
Tension between Caracas and Georgetown rose after the launch of oil tenders by Guyana in September, then the referendum organized in response on December 3 in Venezuela on the annexation of the Essequibo, a territory of 160,000 km2 rich in oil and natural resources, administered by Georgetown and claimed by Venezuela.
Venezuela maintains that the Essequibo River should be the natural border, as in 1777 during the time of the Spanish Empire. Guyana argues that the border, dating from the English colonial era, was ratified in 1899 by an arbitration court in Paris. What London also defends.
President Maduro and his Guyanese counterpart Irfaan Ali pledged during a meeting on December 14 not to use force, but the two countries stuck to their positions.