Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido a contender for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize

Record ID: 1434218

  • Title: Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido a contender for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize
  • Date: 28th September 2019
  • Summary: CARACAS, VENEZUELA (FILE - SEPTEMBER 13, 2019) (REUTERS) VENEZUELAN INTERIOR MINISTER, NESTOR REVEROL, AT NEWS CONFERENCE SOUNDBITE (Spanish) VENEZUELAN INTERIOR MINISTER, NESTOR REVEROL, SAYING: "Guaido's exit to Colombian territory in February of this year was an extraction operation by Colombian narco-paramilitaries. They offered Guaido security and safekeeping during his travel in Colombia territory from a place called La Palmita, in Tachira state (Venezuela) to Puerto Santander (Colombia)." REVEROL AT NEWS CONFERENCE
  • Embargoed: 12th October 2019 09:55
  • Keywords: Tear gas Colombian Venezuela Blackout Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro Caracas Leopoldo Lopez Juan Guaido
  • Location: CARACAS, LA CARLOTA, VENEZUELA
  • City: CARACAS, LA CARLOTA, VENEZUELA
  • Country: Venezuela
  • Topics: Government/Politics,Editors' Choice
  • Reuters ID: LVA005AYGFLTZ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: GUAIDO FILE FOOTAGE CONTINUES IN EDIT 8104-VENEZUELA-POLITICS/GUAIDO PROFILE-PART 1
    Venezuelan opposition leader and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido is a contender for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
    In a matter of months, Guaido had gone from a virtual unknown in Venezuelan politics to the country's most-watched figure, assuming the presidency of the opposition-controlled congress and briefly being detained by the secret police.
    On January 23, the 35-year-old from the South American country's hardscrabble Caribbean coast thrust himself onto the international stage with the boldest challenge to socialist President Nicolas Maduro's rule in years: he declared himself interim president, a move swiftly recognised by the United States, Canada and many Latin American countries.
    His rapid ascent raised hopes that he could fill a leadership vacuum in Venezuela's notoriously divided opposition, which has failed in several attempts to oust Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez. Many of its most prominent figures have been jailed, exiled or barred from seeking public office.
    The salsa-loving baseball fan animated the opposition's upper-class base and won over many working-class Venezuelans fed up with the country's hyperinflationary economic collapse, who have taken to the streets demanding Maduro step down.
    Yet Guaido would still need the backing of the armed forces to achieve his goal of forcing new elections.
    He has proposed an amnesty for members of the military, but said members of the Maduro government who committed human rights violations should be punished.
    Guaido took the helm of the National Assembly on January 5, 2019 with a call for the armed forces to recognise Maduro as a "usurper" after his May 2018 re-election vote, widely viewed as fraudulent.
    The eldest of six children from a working-class family in the coastal state of Vargas, Guaido survived a devastating 1999 mudslide that posed one of the earliest tests to Chavez's 14-year rule.
    He went on to study engineering, but became involved in politics while in college and studied political management at George Washington University in the United States. He is married with a one-year-old daughter.
    For some years, the focus of the opposition - both of Guaido and his mentor, Leopoldo Lopez, the well-known head of the Popular Will party, currently under house arrest - has been ousting Maduro from power. Lopez appeared for the first time since his arrest, with Guaido at a protest in April, 2019, where they called for a military uprising.
    Representing Vargas for Popular Will, Guaido assumed the parliament's leadership as part of a power-sharing agreement between Venezuela's main opposition parties. He has said little about what policies he would pursue as president, but Popular Will describe themselves as centre-left social democrats.
    Guaido was dragged out of his car on the highway and detained by intelligence agents on January 14, 2019, but was swiftly released. Government officials said the officers responsible would be punished.
    Guaido has said he is not afraid of being arrested, boosting his popularity among Venezuelans tired with Maduro.
    The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo on Friday, October 11, at 1100 a.m. (0900 GMT) and the prize, worth 9 million Swedish crowns ($ 1.12 million), will be handed over on December 10, 2019.
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