The government of Costa Rica recognized the leader of the opposition, Juan Guaidó, who declared himself interim president of Venezuela on Wednesday
President Carlos Alvarado, who is currently in Switzerland at the World Economic Forum, made the announcement on his Twitter account.
“We advocate dialogue, peace and new free elections,” wrote Alvarado.
Costa Rica reconoce la proclamación del señor Juan Guaidó como presidente interino de Venezuela. Abogamos por el diálogo, la paz y nuevas elecciones libres.
— Carlos Alvarado Quesada (@CarlosAlvQ) January 23, 2019
The young politician, who is the legislative head in Venezuela since January 5, assumed his role as interim agent before a crowd that backed him during a massive rally in the Venezuelan capital.
“I swear to assume all the powers of the presidency to secure an end to the usurpation,” 35-year old Guaido, the head of the opposition-run congress, told an exuberant crowd in Caracas Wednesday afternoon.
In a press release, Costa Rica’s Foreign Ministry expressed its support for the transitional government.
“Costa Rica expresses its support for the interim government that has the mandate to restore the constitutional order, meet its obligations in the framework of international law and, in particular, the human rights of all Venezuelans,” says the communication.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also expressed its expectation that new presidential elections will be held in Venezuela. “Costa Rica supports the efforts of the National Assembly, legitimately elected, to move towards the realization of free, fair, transparent and up to international standards, in the period provided by the Constitution of Venezuela,” said the statement.
Support from the United States
Immediately after his proclamation, the young opponent of the Nicolás Maduro regime received the recognition of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, according to the official networks of the president and the White House.
Immediately, Maduro announced the break of relations with the United States and gave U.S. personnel 72 hours to leave the country.
Support from the Latin America
Guaido is also backed by Brazil and eleven countries that make up the Lima group: Honduras, Panama, Ecuador, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, Canada, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile and Costa Rica.
The Lima Group, created in 2017 precisely to help solve the Venezuelan crisis, issued a statement on Wednesday afternoon, in which they support “the beginning of the process of democratic transition in Venezuela and condemn the acts of violence that have occurred in that nation”.
In the same vein as the Lima Group, Luis Almagro, general secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS), pronounced his support for Gauido.
On January 9, the government of Costa Rica, as part of the Lima Group, publicly refused to recognize the new six-year term that Maduro began that day. In response, Caracas sent a diplomatic threat and summoned the nations that turned their backs on it, warning that, if they did not rectify, it would take “the most” crude and urgent “diplomatic measures.”
Russia bashes U.S. decision on Venezuela
Russian lawmakers which have close relations with Venezuela, sharply criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition Gauido.
“I think that in this developing situation the United States is trying to carry out an operation to organize the next color revolution in Venezuela,” the deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the upper house of parliament, Andrei Klimov, told state news agency RIA-Novosti.
