US Officials, Media Falsely Present Venezuela’s Guaido as ‘Duly Elected President’

Continuing to try to adjust the narrative of US meddling in Venezuelan, officials have settled on a new course of action in the past few days: flat out lying. Officials, and parts of the US media, are now referring to Juan Guaido as the “duly elected president of Venezuela.”

In reality, Guaido was not duly elected as president, nor indeed did he ever participate in a Venezuelan general election for president. He was elected to parliament in 2015, and has risen to a position of substantial power within parliament, in no small part because of US support.

Then in January the Trump Administration started pushing Guaido to try to take the country over. The legal pretext was that the constitution allows the head of parliament to be an “interim president” if the president-elect doesn’t show up for his inauguration.

President Maduro was actually inaugurated on January 10, after being elected. He held the inauguration in front of the Supreme Court instead of the Assembly building however, which led some to claim it didn’t count. The US wanted to see Guaido replace Maduro, however, so they insisted that this was fine, and Guaido is president now.

While the US recognizing Guaido’s on-paper takeover as legitimate was a fairly cynical move, calling him duly elected president is an absolute lie. It’s not even clear where this lie started, though it is clearly spreading.