Venezuela’s power struggle is heading towards a potentially violent showdown on Saturday, when self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido has vowed to allow caravans of US aid to cross the Venezuelan border in defiance of President Nicolas Maduro and the military. In an interview with FRANCE 24, Guaido’s appointed representative to the US, Carlos Vecchio, expressed confidence that the army will eventually abandon Maduro.
For now, the army remains loyal to Nicolas Maduro, as the defence minister reiterated on Tuesday. But Carlos Vecchio is confident. “The military forces need to be on the side of the people”, he told FRANCE 24’s Marc Perelman.
“In my view, at the end of the day, they will support what we are doing because this is the change, this is the future, Maduro doesn’t represent anything now … And they know that the food and medicine that we’re putting on the border with Venezuela are needed for the people of Venezuela,” Vecchio said.