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Photographer: Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg Photographer: Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg

Venezuela’s National Assembly launched an investigation Tuesday into a report of influence-peddling among nine opposition lawmakers, further undermining interim President Juan Guaido’s efforts to oust Nicolas Maduro.

A committee was established to investigate lawmakers accused of lobbying for a Colombian businessman linked to Alex Saab, a Maduro ally sanctioned by the U.S. and indicted on money-laundering charges in July.

The alleged links were exposed days ago in an investigation by the Venezuelan news site Armando.Info. The committee said it will present its results in two weeks.

The affair is a blow to the opposition movement led by Guaido, which has failed to establish a transition government after being recognized by dozens of countries earlier this year.

“This comes as the opposition is already struggling to define a strategy, having exhausted every option to force regime change,” Eurasia Group analyst Risa Grais-Targow wrote this week.

Guaido, vowing to stamp out corruption even among those around him, said he was suspending the named lawmakers. But several defied him by appearing at the assembly on Tuesday.

Challenging Guaido

“I challenge you Juan Guaido: take us out, you’re going to have to kill us first,” Luis Brito, one of the lawmakers, said at a press conference. He claimed that there’s a rebellion among opposition lawmakers although so far there is scant evidence of it.

Popular Will, Guaido’s political party, said Maduro’s government has sought to bribe opposition parliamentarians ahead of a Jan. 5 vote on whether Guaido remains assembly president. Small opposition parties abandoned Guaido two months ago and began negotiating with representatives of Maduro.

Guaido’s approval rating, which was more than 60% in February, has slipped to 42%, according to a survey by Caracas pollster Datanalisis. Last January, Guaido declared himself interim president because Maduro’s re-election the previous May was widely rejected as fraudulent. The U.S. led an international move to recognize Guaido and call on Maduro to step aside. With the help of a loyal military, Maduro has remained firmly in power.

Maduro’s colleague, Socialist party leader Diosdado Cabello, celebrated Guaido’s woes in a press conference on Monday.

“This comes as no surprise, that they’re accusing each other of corruption,” he said. “Never before has the political opposition been in a worse state than today.”

— With assistance by Fabiola Zerpa