President Maduro denounces US policy in Venezuela a ‘failure’
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has denounced the US parallel institution policy in his country, calling Washington's attempt to assault and replace the public institutions of his country a “failure.”
Maduro made the remarks during the opening ceremony of Venezuela’s now-defunct opposition-led National Assembly (NA) session in the new year, according to TeleSurTv website.
Criticizing the US attempt to shift political powers in his country, he said the “Trumpist policy against Venezuela of assaulting and replacing the public powers of appointing us a president, to name us a National Assembly, to name us a judicial power from outside failed.”
“The US Empire and its representatives in Venezuela have no shame in criticizing themselves and saying that we made a mistake and failed in Venezuela,” the Venezuelan president asserted.
“Venezuela knows that the one who makes the laws, who legislates, who appoints, who governs in parliament in Venezuela is the National Assembly elected in December 2020, installed on January 5, 2021, which with this new board of directors enters its third year of five years of unappealable period”.
He urged Brian Nichols, the US Deputy Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, to learn about ways of legislation in Venezuela by visiting the Latin American country.
President Maduro further called on the Venezuelan opposition and its backers in the US to stop stealing government resources through fake institutions.
The Venezuelan head of state broke off relations with the US when the administration of then-president Donald Trump said it would refuse to recognize the Latin American nation’s election results of the previous year, which had reinstated Maduro in power.
Washington instead began throwing its weight behind opposition figure, Juan Guaido, as Venezuela’s so-called interim president.
Last month, Venezuela’s US-backed opposition voted to remove the so-called “interim government” led by Guaido in a sign that Washington has conceded it cannot overthrow the democratically-elected government of Maduro.
The opposition groups are reportedly seeking a “united front” ahead of presidential elections tentatively scheduled for 2024 after failing to remove Maduro, who won re-election to a six-year term in 2018.
The US, along with dozens of allied countries – mainly in Western Europe — have refused to recognize the democratically-elected Maduro government in Venezuela, terming it “fraudulent”, while backing the opposition-led so-called interim government.
Also in November 2022, Washington lifted its oil embargo on Caracas by allowing the second-largest US oil company to resume production in Venezuela and to import the South American country’s crude into the United States.
Chevron Corp received an expanded US license to revive existing oil projects in the US-sanctioned country and bring new oil supplies to refiners in the United States.
However, it restricts cash payments to Venezuela, in order to control the amount of money entering the country.
President Maduro, in his remarks on Monday, also extended his solidarity to his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, following attacks from the extreme right that he said “does not accept the legitimate power of the people’s votes, that does not accept the sovereignty of countries.”
