The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, affirmed this Sunday that “his pulse will not tremble” to arrest the parliamentary head, Juan Guaidó when the Venezuelan justice so determines.
“The day the prosecution and the courts order his arrest, my pulse as head of state will not shake to comply with the orders of the judiciary and the Public Ministry,” Maduro said in an interview broadcast on government television.
As president of the National Assembly – the only power in the hands of the opposition – Guaidó was proclaimed president in charge of Venezuela on January 23, 2019 after the legislature declared the “usurpation” of Maduro in office after being reelected in questioned elections in May 2018.
Since then, the Venezuelan justice, accused of serving Maduro, opened multiple processes against Guaidó, but the 37-year-old opposition leader was not detained.
Asked why Guaidó, recognized as the president in charge of fifty countries, has not yet been detained, Maduro replied that the prosecution and the courts will be in charge of ordering his arrest.
“God’s timing is perfect, let’s wait for God’s timing,” replied the socialist leader.
Guaidó’s mandate in Parliament – the only power in the hands of the opposition – expires in January 2021 after the legislative elections on December 6, boycotted by some thirty opposition parties that call the process a “fraud.”
However, Elliott Abrams, the main diplomat of the Donald Trump administration for Venezuelan affairs, declared on August 4 that Washington trusts that key countries will continue to recognize Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela, although he remains on the sidelines of the parliamentarians.
In practice, Guaidó has failed to bankrupt the Maduro government, who exercises territorial and institutional control of the oil-rich country mired in six years of recession and the highest inflation in the world.
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