![](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/4\/4e\/Venezuela_president_recognition_map_2019.svg\/1024px-Venezuela_president_recognition_map_2019.svg.png\")
<\/center>\nGraphic of nations recognizing Guaid\u00f3 (dark blue) as rightful President of Venezuela or voicing support for the Venezuelan National Assembly\u2019s action to declare him interim President (lighter blue); those recognizing Maduro are shown in orange. Venezuela is shown in black; nations explicitly and publicly expressing neutrality are in dark grey. Nations in light grey have taken no public position on the matter.<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
Well, the question posed above actually may be a damn good question. Because if international recognition is any indicator, the answer might not be \u201dMaduro el maldito bastardo comunista incompetente\u201d<\/i> for much longer.<\/p>\n
Background, short version: last May, Maduro held an \u201celection\u201d in Venezuela. That election was widely regarded as a sham; many opposition parties were banned, and it\u2019s generally regarded to have been rigged to provide PR justification for Maduro\u2019s continuing illegitimate dictatorship.<\/p>\n
Maduro was \u201cinaugurated\u201d for the second time as Venezuela\u2019s \u201cPresident\u201d on 10 January. Within minutes, the OAS declared Maduro illegitimate and called for new elections.<\/p>\n
A few days later, Venezuela\u2019a National Assembly also broke with Maduro. On 15 January, they declared Maduro to have usurped the Presidency of Venezuela. An opposition leader \u2013 Juan Guaid\u00f3, the President of the National Assembly \u2013 was recognized to be interim President of Venezuela. He was sworn in on 23 January.<\/p>\n
On 23 January, the US recognized Guaid\u00f3 as Venezuela\u2019s legitimate President. The OAS President \u2013 and 16 OAS nations \u2013 recognized Guaid\u00f3 on 24 January.<\/p>\n
All members of the Lima Group (13 member states in North and South America) except for Mexico have since also recognized Guaid\u00f3 as Venezuela\u2019s President; several other nations worldwide have done the same. And as of last week, nineteen European nations \u2013 including a number of non-EU states \u2013 have followed suit<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n And, finally, although the Vatican State has remained publically neutral the Catholic Church in Venezuela released the following statement on 15 January<\/i><\/a> (original in Spanish; what follows is a translated excerpt from Wikipedia):<\/p>\n “The Church in Venezuela, united to its Bishops in communion with the Pope, declare the socialist-communist regime illegitimate and stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan people to rescue democracy, freedom, and justice. Trusting in God, they support the National Assembly”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The graphic above shows the nations supporting Guaid\u00f3 and Maduro, along with those expressing explicit neutrality and those who have not yet taken a public position. A text description of \u201cwho\u2019s supporting whom\u201d today can be found here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n Yeah, Maduro still has the Venezuelan Army\u2019s backing \u2013 at least, publicly. For now. And Cuba reputedly has a number of security forces currently deployed to Venezuela to prop up Maduro\u2019s shaky regime.<\/p>\n But even the support of Venezuela\u2019s armed forces has been called into question. Some Venezuelan Generals have broken with Maduro, with one estimating that \u201c90% are with the National Assembly\u201d.<\/p>\n Maduro will of course do whatever he likes. But IMO if Maduro wants to avoid an end similar to Ceaucescu’s he\u2019d be best advised to leave pronto – and use some of those siphoned funds that he\u2019s almost certainly gotten stashed in various numbered offshore accounts to live in luxury for whatever years he has left.<\/p>\n And IMO he should also start figuring out what he\u2019s going to tell the Deity after he passes. Because IMO he\u2019s really<\/i> gonna have \u201csome \u2018splainin to do\u201d regarding his actions lately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"