A young member of Parliament to challenge Maduro

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Just to the Parliament-in-chief elected, the 38-year-old Juan Guaidó the legitimate President of Venezuela and even through a short arrest will not intimidate you. He is a risk for Maduro?

The Situation seems surreal. While in the Background gentle reggae music from the car radio, the driver with his Smartphone, a disturbing scene. In front of him, the traffic had come to a Stop, as several masked security forces a Person out of a car, drag, force you into an SUV and drive away. “Shit, Sebin,” commented the driver of the scene dry. Sebin is the Name of the dreaded Venezuelan is secret service. In the case of the detained Person is Juan Guaidó, President of the majority of the Opposition-controlled national Assembly. The video recording spread like wildfire on the Internet.

In detention, he is only an hour, but this triggers an avalanche of solidarity and the protests of foreign governments. The short-term arrest taking place in the midst of a power struggle for the legitimacy of the presidency of Nicolás Maduro. Despite protests at home and abroad Maduro on 10. January, his second term started. His re-election last year was boycotted by the Opposition and has been referred to by numerous States and international organizations as undemocratic. Since at least last Thursday, Maduro is according to the opinion of the President of Parliament Guaidó a “usurper”, a, of the tear misappropriate the state power.

Last Friday Guaidó announced to take over the presidency temporarily. He wanted to proclaim new elections. He referred to the Constitution of the South American country and asked the population and the armed forces to support.

The spectacular arrest on Sunday was of a short-circuit action of the secret service, Sebin? It seems to want to in any case, the government. You showed the responsibility and said that the Sebin agents had acted without authority, and would now be subject to disciplinary action.

Cracks in the chain of command?

“It is difficult to find out what’s happening,” says Ana Soliz Lavindar de rod, a researcher at the Helmut-Schmidt University of the Federal armed forces in Hamburg: “It could be that the government has ordered the arrest, but then relatively quickly, before the incalculable foreign policy consequences is deterred. But it could also be a sign that the government is itself divided,” adds Soliz.

Victory: Nicolás Maduro, on 10. January for a second term swearing in.

The latter Thesis is also taken up by Venezuelan journalists and a radio presenter Luis Carlos Díaz: “The secret service has arrested in the past already many of the activists and the opposition, abused, and drugged in order to force confessions. The arrest at the weekend was supposed to be a routine measure of the Sebin. Surprisingly, the rapid release. This suggests a power struggle within the government apparatus. For us here in Venezuela, the arrest is not surprising, but the release.”

So also Parliament President Guaidó own interpretation of the incident. He says a “crack in the chain-of-command” within the government. The 38-year-old engineer had only been in December, the Parliament elected President. With vigor and aggressiveness, he seems to want now, Maduro is on the field, the lack of legitimacy of the attack. At the same time he’s trying to at least parts of the armed forces on his side.

A new wave of violence is feared

Guaidó for the 23. Accessed January demonstrations against the government. For the Venezuelan story is a symbolic date and is cleverly chosen. 23. January 1958 was overthrown after massive protests in the population of the dictator Marcos Pérez Jimenez in a military coup.

According to Ana Soliz Lavindar de rod Guaidó plays but also with the fire: “This call to protest on the street could easily outbreaks of new violence and Chaos,” fears the expert. In previous waves of Protest, the Opposition had brought in over the next few weeks, tens of thousands of people against Maduro on the road. During violent clashes between security forces, paramilitary motorcycle gangs – the “Colectivos” – and demonstrators, more than 160 people came to the 2014 and 2017, a total of killed.

Peter Birle, Director of research at the Ibero-American Institute (IAI) in Berlin, commented in an interview with DW cautious: “Whether Maduro still holds all the threads in Hand, to judge from the outside very difficult. But from my perspective, has changed in this power struggle between the Parliament and the President, nothing. You may want to Guaidó of course, that he is more successful than its predecessor, but given the fact that this Regime is in control of the entire state, I am very skeptical.”

The must also agree to the Journalist in Caracas. “Maduro is controlled in fact by the institutions, which are financed with the funds from the budget. And with that he controlled, of course, the armed forces,” said Luis Carlos Díaz.

Birle says that he is always being asked, how many days, weeks or at most months, the Venezuelan people is still capable of this crisis is to endure. “We will probably sit in here all these years”, was his answer.