An influential American elected official called Tuesday January 5 for a new policy of the United States with Venezuela, where President Nicolas Maduro took the helm of parliament after a legislative vote rejected by much of the international community.
To read also: In 2021, the Venezuelan crisis to leave or double
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States did not recognize the new parliament resulting from
"fraudulent elections"
and continued to view opponent Juan Guaido as the
"legitimate president"
of the country.
But in an interview with AFP, the new chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Gregory Meeks, stressed that the United States could hardly criticize the elections in Venezuela, at a time when incumbent President Donald Trump seeks, with the support of elected Republicans, to reverse the result of a ballot he lost.
"It is clear that this government is not on the right track,"
he said.
"In fact, I think a lot of Venezuelans are laughing, because for me, what Trump is doing with this election is very similar to what Maduro tried to do in Venezuela
.
"
"We need a different policy"
, added the New York Democrat, the first African-American to chair the Foreign Affairs Committee of the lower house of Congress.
Gregory Meeks has been to Venezuela several times, where he met Nicolas Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez, and ex-President Barack Obama tasked him with representing the United States at Hugo Chavez's funeral in 2013. According to him, the United States should
“cooperate multilaterally”
with regional actors and international organizations.
“We can't go out there and say, this is your president.
It is not our role, it is the role of the Venezuelan people
, ”he said.
Read also: Venezuela: the opponent Juan Guaido more and more isolated
Gregory Meeks has not, however, called on the next US President Joe Biden to reverse the US recognition of Juan Guaido as interim president.
Above all, the United States should encourage the often divided Venezuelan opposition to unite, he said.
To solve the problem of electoral fraud, he said it would be necessary to strengthen the country's institutions, including admitting representatives of the opposition to the electoral commission.
"We must ensure an adequate climate on the ground to have a free and fair election
," he noted.
More than fifty countries, including most of Latin America and Europe, recognize Juan Guaido as interim president of the country in crisis, and Washington has continued to strengthen its sanctions to obtain the departure of the socialist leader, without success.