The Parliament Coup was a Maduro-Guaidó Show

On January 5 the National Assembly was to meet for its first 2020 session. The assembly was to vote for its President. Juan Guaidó was believed to have secured the votes of most opposition fractions for his re-election, although the small radical block of the Maria Corina Machado’s Vente Venezuela party (Fracción 16 de Julio) had declared it would abstain.

Guaidó, and most opposition lawmakers, were not allowed to enter the Legislative Palace by the Bolivarian National Guard. Inside congress, the minority PSUV block, together with 13 opposition representatives, and without even assessing if they had the legal quorum needed, hastily elected Luis Parra, an opposition parliamentarian accused of corruption and formally expelled from his party Primero Justicia, as the new President of the National Assembly. Guaidó, and the parliamentarians who support him, met at the nearby headquarters of the El Nacional newspaper, and held a parallel vote re-electing Guaidó as president.

One positive aspect of this parliamentary coup by the Maduro government is that it again –briefly –united most of the opposition parties behind one leadership: instead of abstaining, the radical 16 de Julio fraction voted for Guaidó.

Twitter influencer Ángel García Banchs (@garciabanchs) disagrees with the 16 de Julio fraction and its decision to back Guaidó. He claims he still believes these radical opposition representatives are “honest”, but that they have been fooled by a show staged by the Maduro government, and by Guaidó and this “collaborationist” opposition.

García Banchs is convinced that the only solution to the Venezuelan crisis is an international military intervention, followed by a purifying civil war, which would “clean” Venezuela not only of chavismo, but of the “collaborationist” and “socialist” opposition. The conflict would end with a “republican Dictatorship” which would ensure the Rule of Law, sweep “socialism” from Venezuelan politics, and produce the “first economic miracle of the Twenty-first Century.” García Banchs claims to be a republican in the classical European term, not a democrat, as democracy leads to a fundamental lack of individual and economic freedom.

Guaidó has been, according to García Banchs, unwilling to grasp this simple truth and has not unequivocally asked President Trump to militarily intervene in Venezuela. His conclusion is that Guaidó is not really an opposition leader but a government agent, funded through Bolivarian corruption schemes.

García Banchs therefore seems to agree to an extent with the government’s version of the January 5 events: Guaidó staged a show by pretending to enter the Legislative Palace, but he really didn’t want to get in. The government claims it is because Guaidó did not have enough votes for his re-election, García Banchs thinks it’s because he is in cahoots with the government. The influencer is upset that the 16 de Julio fraction fell for this “obvious” trick and voted for Guaidó.

As events unfolded on January 5 and Guiadó was still “trying” to enter Congress, García Banchs posted on Twitter:

The bobolongo [the fool, Guaidó] has no idea of the regime he is facing. Or is it that he is not really facing it? It is not a dictatorship. It is a narco-tyranny with an international criminal gang.

What a farce [payasada]! What a shame with Venezuelans and with the whole planet. What do these shows have to do with the lack of determination by “politicians” to ask for international military aid to remove the narco-regime?

As other Twitter users claimed that events in the Legislative Palace where the actions of a dictatorship, García Banchs felt the need to make some important terminological distinctions:

Dictatorship is the reestablishment of the Republic (Rule of Law). Therefore this [the Maduro government] is not a Dictatorship. It is a tyranny of narcos, led by an international criminal gang.

I strongly condemn the show by Luis Parra, the National Assembly, Guaidó, Maduro, and the rest of the delinquent Venezuelan politicians. They are all crooks and this is all a show.

Later, as The National Assembly convened at the El Nacional and re-elected Guaidó as its President, García Banchs commented on the 16 de Julio block:

The @fraccionAN16J, which is formed by honest representatives, has today made a grave mistake by supporting Guaidó, who is known to collaborate with the narco-regime. They still are honest deputies, but they are honest and mistaken.

The @fraccionAN16J should have taken the opportunity and explained to the world the impossibility of having a National Power today in Venezuela because of the existence of a narco-tyranny and, from exile, explained the need for a foreign military intervention in favour of the Venezuelan nation.