Juan Gerardo Guaido’s agenda is narrow. Today, he must comply with the schedules and the public presentations that serve his political visibility strategy. However, the engineer finds time and space, within the Venezuelan chaos, for attending to his duties ranging from the commitments to the Popular Will party to daily emergencies, and even family matters; and of course, serve the media. Juan Guaido is the most mentioned person in Venezuela and the most controversial Latin-American public figure since January 2019.

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He will soon turn thirty-six. His wife Fabiana Rosales is twenty-seven, and Miranda, his little daughter, will turn two amidst cameras and microphones, and in a family dynamic that has completely changed. Last December, he would not appear in the polls nor was he in the journalists’ list of priority sources. However, he has been accompanying the country’s main political leaders for over a decade, since he joined the university movement that in 2007 inflicted an electoral defeat to Hugo Chavez.

Today, he appears in public as the crowds shout his last name. At the same time, in the public arena, it is the senior politicians most “battered” by years of conflict who come in second place and have to make him way. The theory of Guaido and of those who accompany him, including the Organization of American States and the European Parliament, is that Nicolas Maduro is illegitimately holding office, since he held elections without international recognition in May 2018. For this reason, the parliament presided by Guaido decreed a “power vacuum”. This vacuum is filled temporarily by the deputy till free elections can be held again, without imprisoned, exiled, disqualified or isolated opposition candidates and without the participation of illegal parties; on a date arranged pursuant to the Constitution and with neutral electoral authorities, i.e. after dismantling the apparatus established by Chavez and Maduro during their mandate.

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His task is not an easy one; however, he smiles and perseveres. His proposal is to break the supports base that keeps Maduro in power, especially the military one. Recently, his chief of staff sustained a raid and a detention by the same security corps that held himself prisoner for hours on the morning of Sunday January 13th: the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) −the political police. Roberto Marrero was prosecuted for “terrorism”, according to Maduro’s judicial apparatus, which threatens to detain Guaido at any time. On his part, Guaido moves in and out of the country as to raise the cost of that move.

We met him at the Caracas offices of Popular Will in Altamira. The politician has been acknowledged by over 50 countries as “president-elect” of Venezuela, whereas Nicolas Maduro continues governing from Miraflores Palace and the Tiuna Military Fort, in the capital city.

GQ: Outside the country, I am asked who you are. You come from a party whose leader, Leopoldo Lopez, is imprisoned since 2014, whereas others are exiled or, as deputy Freddy Guevara’s case, isolated in the Chilean Embassy since 2017. Now you are in charge. How can you lead without being imprisoned yourself by those leaders and their personal agendas?

JG: The first thing is the awareness of the need for governability to hold office and to provide Venezuela with stability in order to re-institutionalize. That is why we are not subjugated, but in a “political society”. I learned that at the Parliament, where I had to build consensus. I was president of a commission, head of a party’s parliamentary group, and then of [Democratic] Unity [Roundtable]. You may think that I just appeared suddenly one day, but actually, I was always there. I was not the one delivering the speech, but I worked on the organization and training. Now we are articulating the political strength necessary to produce changes and breaks. Before, we were facing a wall erected with oil, drug trafficking, armed groups, and persecution.

GQ: It has been more than three months from the chant “vamos bien”; furthermore, the breaks of Chavismo do not depend on you. How do you keep up the initiative?

JG: Processes in Venezuela have been “alluvial”: highly participatory and with a high degree of mobilization at important times. The challenge is to keep up the mobilization and the hope. The regime has reached a level of despair at which it can only resist. For this reason, it persecutes journalists, unionists, and practically anyone. The challenge is to leave this unprecedented gray zone: a president-elect fighting to exercise the executive functions and seeking to overcome the crisis, whereas there is a dictatorship in force, having seized all powers and using the Republic’s arms to defend itself.

Foto: Donaldo Barros

GQ: Transition has not started yet, but neither is dictatorship over. How can you achieve that rupture?

JG: When we defined the strategy, we thought that it would be linear, even though it has not been the case. It is a sui generis transition in which we took over some national assets abroad, named diplomatic representatives, and prepared a Country Plan to address the emergency. But we must also fight, so usurpation by Maduro is finished. Change is dependent on his departure. If we assess the variables to build that transition −which is the construction of a majority− the exercise of such transition, the rupture of the dominant coalition, and the international support, it would seem that we have it all. However, we must persevere on this path that also depends on the Armed Forces. We can have an agreed election, a sui generis transition like that of the civilian-military junta of 1958 that resulted in democracy, or a departure forced either locally or with international support. This can be a coup d’état or the pressure by an international coalition. We must assess them all and we must control the variables, including pressure from the street. The most important thing is to look to the future that we can govern.

GQ: And what did you learn from the opposition leaders who were already working against Chavismo before you?

JG: I was once told that the regime was like a mill: a grinding of politicians. They lived a very difficult time, in which the rulers’ popularity was high, and public expenditure was exacerbated. Never before had Latin America seen such spending. It was the millionaire uncle coming with oil, suitcases, and colossal assistentialism missions, and it was not easy to compete with that. I retain, however, that the democratic values were preserved. For this reason, we beat Chavez in 2007. It was amazing to do it against all odds. Of course, mistakes were made later, such as not having common agendas, but we paid that learning curve jointly.

Foto: Donaldo Barros

GQ: What did you learn from your engineering studies that is useful for you today?

JG: I am an industrial engineer. My main role is streamlining, defining where bottlenecks are, how to enhance processes, how to make it cheaper, faster, and more efficient.

GQ: You must do your work in a country with less means. How do you regard the situation?

JG: It is not a new problem. However, since we come from a caudillo-like tradition, we have to learn new forms of communication, how to diversify spokespeople. Social media have been our primary means. There, we have seen the proliferation of bots and campaigns against us. We are also being blocked telephone services. We have gone back to things such as leaflets, but at the same time, we are feeding WhatsApp, which has been a key tool. We are also facing fake news, because these are easily disseminated since there is no official information nor the opportunity to compare. Besides, all of this occurs in a setting of high uncertainty and anxiety for people. This occurs face to a regime that seams immovable but that is not so; it is just resisting, entrenched. They say it. They do not hide it.

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Juan Guaido talks as easily as if he had been talking about politics from his youth and in different spaces, from communities to the diplomatic arena. Whereas this interview is conducted, Fabiana Rosales, his wife, is on tour across several countries in the Americas. At each stop on the map, she meets the Venezuelan diaspora, which could surpass 5 million migrants in 2019 (over 16% of the population) and also meets presidents that recognize her as first lady. Guaido laughs at the good fortune and at the occasions in which he has gotten out safely, such as his last government detention. But he also remains calm and recovers the unhurried pace when joining the critical dots, such as the threats that he receives. He must cover these carefully as not to reveal some upcoming strategies. He settles in the couch and remains attentive, without drinking coffee or water.

GQ: Very few knew that you would take the oath as president-elect in front of the crowds on January 23rd. And if somebody knew, they managed to hide it well. Could you tell us what happened then from your perspective?

JG: On January 5th, we determined that there was a constitutional possibility to fill the vacuum at the president office. It is like the fable of the one character that has “to claim the throne”. It is a similar situation: a president-elect claiming the full exercise of the executive powers to solve the problems facing Venezuelans. Constitutionally, we can claim it, but in the facts, this is a matter of political crisis that we must face and fight. We must build that capacity, first with citizen protest, and then with the desire for change.

GQ: However, the international press still calls you “the self-proclaimed…” Why is that?

JG: It is lack of knowledge about the Venezuelan Constitution or about the political moment that the country is living. This is another false dilemma or a half-truth. This did not start off in 2019, but from our victory in the 2015 parliamentary elections, in which we built a majority. Maybe we consider last year to be gray, even though we managed for the whole world not to recognize the fraudulent process on May 20th. That allowed us to assume the president-elect office on January 23rd. So, we built that moment, and for that, we had communication with all the political parties and with the international support.

GQ: Roberto Marrero, your chief of staff, was detained and imprisoned, accused of terrorism. However, you have not set aside your tour. How do you deal with the situation?

JG: It is a direct attack against me. The regime salivates at the thought of detaining me. I do not know whether I will also be imprisoned myself by the time this issue is published. Currently, my brother is also being persecuted and pursued. He is accused of helping me. Lawyer and oil legal advisor Juan Antonio Planchart was also imprisoned. He investigated and identified for us the funds to Chavismo from abroad −the proceeds of corruption. This is more than just persecution. Here, nobody is innocent anymore, we are guilty of wanting a change for Venezuela.

GQ: How do you confront the situation?

JG: We are dealing with it as we have done it for many years now. In 2014, I was in charge of the party when Leopoldo Lopez was arrested and there was an arrest warrant against Carlos Vecchio −now ambassador-elect to the United States. At that time, those remaining, we accommodated. They broke into the party’s headquarters three times. The security corps aimed at my face. If I retain something from my process of life, it is that I am a survivor, and we do not want to be the victims. We want to persevere, survive, and transcend towards a dignified life. It is not easy because, as everybody else, I do not have electricity or water at this time. What I will share is not a populist thing to say, but I also have to solve the issues of the medical treatments for my mother’s cancer and of feeding my daughter, like anyone else.

Foto: Donaldo Barros

GQ: Why do you think Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s government in Mexico has been different from other countries in the region?

JG: There is an approach desired for the conflict in Venezuela: to make it look like an ideological issue between left and right. That is not the case. There are commitments, which were undertaken a long time ago to associations and alliances…

GQ: Are you speaking about you or about AMLO?

JG: I am speaking about the continent’s left wing, about the Sao Paulo Forum. For years, they tried to impose a political model financed from Brazil with money from the private company Odebrecht and from Venezuela with the profits from the state-owned oil company PDVSA. Both of which are involved in cases of corruption. I do not intend to say that such links exist with Lopez Obrador, but there are indeed such time links. His campaign was based on denouncing corruption and human rights violations. There would be little margin for maneuver to speak about these issues in the case of Venezuela.

GQ: But how can the Latin American left understand you when leaders such as Trump, Bolsonaro, or Duque endorse you?

JG: Evidently, the domestic policy of each country will use it for its own campaign. However, the Venezuelan case concerns other things: it is a matter of fundamental rights, of humanity. It is a question of the right to life, health, freedom of thought. We have reached a point in which we ask for water, electricity, and food. Is this 1900 or what? Are we in rural Venezuela? It is a backwardness of over 100 years, and that cannot withstand any ideological or transnational interests screening. That story about the United States being willing to take over Venezuelan oil is the biggest lie that I have ever heard in my life. They have actually been Venezuela’s main client in that field, because they have refineries capable of processing our oil. It is pure rhetoric, it is a false narrative that does not meet reality.

Foto: Donaldo Barros

GQ: How will you address key problems, such as poverty or hyperinflation?

JG: It is not my structuring, but that of a great team that we have called Country Plan, broken down into 10 areas ranging from energy to economy. The situation is so critical that we yearn for a three-digit inflation. At this time, we are at an annualized rate above 3.000.000%, and we could end this year with an 8-digit hyperinflation. We cannot tighten our belt any further to implement measures. We cannot put any further pressure on Venezuelans. For this reason, we speak about humanitarian aid to contain the crisis, while the structural problem of recovering productivity is solved.

GQ: Why do you ask the military for a break when they seem to still support Nicolas Maduro? Is there anything that we ignore?

JG: That too (laughter). But the only possibility of a peaceful transition is that one. Otherwise, it would be a very complex forced solution for us Venezuelans. We have to exhaust that alternative. For how long can we hold till we know whether we can count on them or not? There is information, we have communication, and not for free: today there are over 160 officers imprisoned. And there is also fear, because for them, there has been persecution and torture. The High Command has commitments to itself. I think, and that is my perception, that they do not want to take the step and thus lose their privileges.

GQ: Your image has been important. Many political leaders dressed up as sportspeople. Why did you choose the suit as your daily outfit, especially when you are the youngest of them all?

JG: In terms of image, there are important symbols. As a politician, you represent the citizens. Careful! I come from the Caribbean coast of La Guaira. I love being barefoot, it was fun when I could do it, but the respect of voters is important. The symbols of power carry weight when you bear and represent them. Today, someone can usurp the presidential sash, but that does not make them president. We must represent the citizens with dignity. There are those who believe that ways mean distance when they actually mean respect. For a long time, we thought it to be nice that a president broke with protocol, because that made them look closer; but it is a lie. Transgressing the space of others and the established ways does not develop empathy. In politics and in life, it is very important to keep form and substance.

Ram Martínez para GQ México

GQ: How does it feel to lose privacy?

JG: These days, Fabiana, my wife, was asking me, “Are we getting back to normality?” And I thought that she was speaking about the country, so I replied to her affirmatively. I told her that we would have water and electricity again. That one normality, we will recover, but personal normality or privacy… I do not know. Being able to go to the park or to the movies again? That I do not know. We undertook the mission of being public servants, and that bears consequences. However, the fact of having people at home permanently in the privacy of my family helped me. It was always like that: at home, I lived with my uncles, aunts, and cousins. That is why we have managed to overcome this situation.

GQ: And when do you get to be a father? Because you have been in a different dynamic for three months now…

JG: That is one of the most important roles and, paradoxically, it is what makes me take further risks; otherwise, I know that my daughter will not have a dignified life. At every opportunity that I have, I try to be with her every second. It is not easy, but it is the best that I have now as motivation.

GQ: Do you fear for your life or for the life of your family?

JG: Freedom or life are always a risk. There have been direct death and persecution threats, but I do not fear. The truth is that it is a risk that we take and endure.

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