This past week, the Organization of American States’ (OAS) Permanent Council met to discuss the crisis in Venezuela under the Democratic Charter. At this meeting, it became clear that Venezuela’s regime and regional alliances have weakened. Oil and diplomacy, which have previously been very effective and influential in the inter-American system, are rapidly losing support. And, the efforts by Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the OAS, once again clash between the government and opposition, as he fights against the potential suspension of Venezuela from that regional body.
This is how all stood when the Supreme Court announced two decisions (later partially modified) that represented a greater leap down the path towards radicalization. The first ruling restricted the scope of parliamentary immunity to the extent that representatives could be imprisoned for their activity in support of the opposition. The second ruling is based off of the desperate economic situation of the country. In this decision, the Supreme Court, did two things: 1) it authorized joint ventures with the Russian oil industry, bypassing the parliamentary approval required by the Constitution; and 2) It declared the National Assembly in contempt and stripped its core legislative and oversight authority.
Julio Borges, President of the National Assembly, ripped the Supreme Court decision that stripped parliament from legislative and oversight power.
In the face of these measures, which called for the National Assembly to lose some of its legislative authority, there has been an energetic reaction both inside and outside of Venezuela. The OAS Secretary General himself called the Supreme Court’s decision a "self-coup" on the part of the State.
This is not the first time that the growing deterioration of the state of democracy in Venezuela has been condemned at the international level. However, Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz released an unprecedented statement on the situation, exclaiming that “the recent decisions of the Supreme Court will amount to a rupture of the constitutional order [in Venezuela].” Since the coming to power of Chavismo, no senior public official has ever spoken out in this way. Her statement obliged President Nicolás Maduro to distance himself from the decisions, resulting in the Supreme Court modifying its earlier rulings within the first 24 hours.
Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz, holding the Venezuelan Constitution, denounced the Supreme Court rulings as a “rupture of the constitutional order”
Ortega Diaz’ position against the rulings cancelled out the self-coup by which Maduro sought to become the holder of both executive and legislative powers. Her statement amounts to a significant crack in the regime’s judicial armour, which is based on acting in lockstep with the Supreme Court to give the impression of legitimacy to the authoritarianism of the Executive Branch. Furthermore, the unconditional subordination of the armed forces to the regime’s authoritarianism – with the Supreme Court as a constitutional pretext – also relies on this procedural relationship.
The Attorney General’s statement also initiated a new trend in the political conflict in Venezuela: institutionally litigating the differences and internal strains of the ruling party in public.
Despite the start of this new trend, respect for the autonomy of the National Assembly and the Constitution is far from being restored (in fact dozens of Supreme Court decisions that transgress the Constitutional order remain in force). Although the Supreme Court is not an independent watchdog of constitutionality – in short, there is no real democracy – this moment is the first time that a significant break has been placed on Maduro’s attempt to accumulate all the government’s power in his hands.
If Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz continues to exhibit this forthrightness, she could become a new “interlocutor” in the search for solutions to the political conflict in Venezuela, as well as in the process being brought forward by the OAS related to its Democratic Charter.
Oil and Russia
Needless to say, oil is at the epicenter of these recent developments. It is well known that the Venezuelan regime depends on two outlets: oil diplomacy, exercised through Petro-Caribe and ALBA, and its financial alliance with China. The drop in oil prices plus the decline in oil production has closed off the Chinese source of financing, which is why Russia has recently become a key actor in Venezuelan oil policy.
In its insatiable quest for funding, the Maduro government, as previously noted, has decided to create oil business joint ventures with Russia. In other words, the government has started selling Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company, to Russia. And, there is an additional aggravating circumstance: Rosneft, the Russian state-owned oil company, is the main creditor – with a 50% share guarantee – of CITGO, the PDVSA subsidiary that operates in the United States.
Therefore, the government of Venezuela is playing with fire.
Since Venezuela’s commitments to China have become unsustainable, the country has chosen to forge a closer alliance with Putin and Russia. This alliance is controversial not only because Russia has forged a resistance against cooperating with juncture in the European Union, but the country’s actions also stand at the heart of the American political debate. This country is under investigation for using cyber-warfare to interfere in the United States’ presidential elections that led to Donald Trump becoming president. In effect, and as the intelligence community has already pointed out, Putin may very well have the power to compromise or extort Trump and his administration; raising the question of whether Russian influence could be used in the United States or elsewhere to support Venezuela’s authoritarian rule.
These new trends in the Venezuelan political conflict have occurred in the framework of other international trends: the post-oil era causing the price of crude oil to decrease (an economic reaction to the growth of energy alternatives); a new inter-American coalition that is not indifferent to the fate of democracy in Venezuela; and the emergence of Russia as an unprecedented factor of influence in the Americas.