Venezuela talks inch toward election deal

The Venezuelan government and US-backed opposition are inching toward an agreement on holding new presidential elections in nine months, but closely watched negotiations are still far from unraveling the Opec country's protracted conflict.

Diosdado Cabello, president of the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) and leading radical political figure in the government, declared that President Nicolas Maduro will not step aside to allow new presidential elections next year. "There will not be any presidential elections in 2020," Cabello said on his weekly television program last night. Maduro "will continue as president and the only elections that could be held in 2020 are National Assembly elections," Cabello said, referring the opposition-controlled legislature that most western countries deem the last democratically elected body in Venezuela.

Cabello's remarks appear to undercut the negotiations brokered by Norway in Barbados this week between representatives of Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, who since January 2019 has been recognized as Venezuela's interim president by more than 50 countries.

But an aide to Guaido, who has yet to issue a statement on this week's encounter in Barbados, said Cabello is only seeking to torpedo the talks that have made progress toward elections without Maduro. Government officials echoed that view, asserting that Cabello is trying to protect his position.

The two delegations have left Barbados for a pause in the talks, but they are set to continue, another Guaido aide said.

The government's negotiating agenda included the possibility that Maduro would not be a candidate in presidential elections, but he would handpick his potential successor, a presidential palace official told Argus.

Also on the government agenda is the appointment of new authorities to the National Electoral Council (CNE) by joint consensus, combining new presidential and National Assembly elections, the return of elected deputies from the the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) to the current assembly before elections, the release of up to 800 political prisoners, and the immediate lifting of all US sanctions against state-owned oil company PdV and dozens of Maduro government officials, the palace official said.

Guaido maintains that the assembly should complete its constitutional term, meaning new legislative elections would not be held until the first week of December 2020, according to officials in his Voluntad Popular party and other opposition groups.

The opposition's main demand is Maduro's immediate resignation, making way for a transition government headed by Guaido ahead of presidential elections in nine months. Other key priorities are an overhaul of the CNE, the dissolving of the ANC and the release of all political prisoners.

Cabello last night dismissed any possibility of dissolving the ANC, a body that was established in 2017 as part of a Maduro government strategy to sideline the National Assembly. The foreign governments that support Guaido maintain that the ANC is an illegitimate and unconstitutional body.

The government wants to combine presidential and legislative elections because the PSUV believes it would sweep both contests, particularly if the fractured opposition coalition's parties turn against each other in a scramble for seats in the next legislature.

Current Miranda state governor Hector Rodriguez, a 37-year-old attorney and senior PSUV leader considered a moderate young socialist, could be the ruling party's choice to compete against Guaido in new presidential elections, the palace official said.

Guaido could stand for president following a transition period, but he is more likely to cede the way for more senior opposition figures, including his political mentor Leopoldo Lopez who is currently holed up in the Spanish diplomatic residence in Caracas.

Opposition parties in Guaido's coalition including Accion Democratica (AD), Primero Justicia (PJ), and Zulia-based Un Nueva Era (UNT) support the dialogue, but their leaders individually also harbor ambitions to compete for the presidency.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado of Vente Venezuela, a party that is outside Guaido's Democratic Unity coalition (MUD), aspires to be Venezuela's first woman president. Her steadfast rejection of negotiations is backed by former Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma and former Venezuelan ambassador to the UN Diego Arria, even though this trio supports Guaido.

This week's talks promoted by the EU were a blow to Washington, which has been tightening sanctions on Venezuela since January in a bid to force Maduro out of power, and has warned against any negotiated deal that leaves Maduro or his associates in place.

Earlier today, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Venezuela's military intelligence agency DGCIM. The move follows the arrest and apparent death by torture of navy captain Rafael Acosta Arevalo.

The US has oil sanctions on Venezuela since 28 January, and financial sanctions have been in place since August 2017.