Venezuelan presidential crisis

The Venezuelan presidential crisis was a political crisis concerning the leadership and legitimate president of Venezuela between 2019-23, with the nation and the world divided in support for Nicolás Maduro or Juan Guaidó.

Venezuela is engulfed in a political and economic crisis which has led to seven million people leaving since 2015. The process and results of the 2018 presidential elections were widely disputed. The opposition-majority National Assembly declared Maduro a usurper of the presidency on the day of his second inauguration and disclosed a plan to set forth its president Guaidó as the succeeding acting president under article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution. A week later, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice declared that the presidency of the National Assembly was the "usurper" of authority and declared the body to be unconstitutional. Minutes after Maduro took the oath as president, the Organization of American States (OAS) approved a resolution declaring Maduro's presidency illegitimate and urging new elections. Meetings of the OAS on 24 January and the United Nations Security Council on 26 January were held but no consensus reached. During the 49th General Assembly of the Organization of American States on 27 June, Guaidó's presidency was recognized by the organization. Guaidó and the National Assembly declared he was acting president and swore himself in on 23 January.

At his peak, Guaidó was recognized as legitimate by about 60 countries, despite never running as president; Maduro by about 20 countries. However, Guaidó's international support waned. Support followed geopolitical lines, with Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Turkey supporting Maduro, while most Western and Latin American countries supported Guaidó. Support for Guaidó began to decline when an uprising attempt in 2019 failed. Following this failure, representatives of Guaidó and Maduro began mediation. After a second meeting in Norway, no deal was reached. In July 2019, negotiations started again in Barbados. In September, Guaidó announced the end of dialogue following a forty-day absence by the Maduro government as a protest against US sanctions. In March 2020, the US proposed a transitional government that would exclude Maduro and Guaidó from the presidency. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US would lift sanctions if Maduro agreed to organize elections that did not include him. Guaidó accepted the proposal, while Venezuela's foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, rejected it.

By January 2020, efforts by Guaidó to create a transitional government had been unsuccessful and Maduro continued to control state institutions. In January 2021, the European Union stopped recognizing Guaidó as president, but still did not recognize Maduro as president; the European Parliament reaffirmed its recognition of Guaidó as president, and the EU threatened with further sanctions. After the announcement of regional elections in 2021, Guaidó announced a "national salvation agreement" and proposed negotiation with Maduro, with a schedule for free and fair elections, with international observers, in exchange for lifting sanctions.

In December 2022, three of the four main opposition political parties backed and approved a plan to dissolve the interim government and create a commission of five members to manage foreign assets, as deputies sought a united strategy ahead of the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, stating that the interim government had failed to achieve the goals it had set.