2023-05-29 13:46:13
Around the turn of the millennium, Venezuela was still one of the richest welfare societies in the world, from where the situation turned dramatic in barely a decade: general impoverishment, hyperinflation, and seven million economic refugees became the result of political leadership considered illegitimate. For years, the international community has been trying to isolate the Maduro regime with sanctions, and in 2019 a constitutional coup legitimized by the West further upset the mood, but last year, due to the Russian-Ukrainian war, the geopolitical status of Venezuela also changed a lot, and it seems that it is loosening up the squeeze on the regime. Perhaps the surreal situation presented in today’s article, where $1.8 billion worth of gold is at stake, can only be interpreted under these circumstances.
Thanks to its rich past, Venezuela has a large amount of gold reserves, some of which it keeps abroad. But when President Maduro wanted to bring the stock kept in London home in 2020, then the Bank of England refused his request. The central bank of the United Kingdom argued that the United Kingdom recognizes Juan Guaido, who carried out a constitutional coup in 2019, as the legitimate president of the country, so Maduro and the central bank governor appointed by Maduro cannot rule on the movement of gold.
Guaido following a long tug-of-war In January 2023, he was officially removed from the post of interim president of the National Assembly, and now Richard Lissack, a lawyer for the Maduro-controlled Central Bank of Venezuela’s board of directors, says this dissolution is key to the appeal and that the London court must take into account the new political situation in Venezuela. According to Lissack, since the Guaido government has been dissolved, its international recognition is no longer valid. According to him, the court should recognize the decisions made by the Venezuelan courts and ignore the validity of the interim board of the Central Bank of Venezuela.
The strange political situation has resulted in, among other things, the Central Bank of Venezuela having a coup leader and a pro-Maduro leader, and there is a legal battle over who is in control. Andrew Fulton, the lawyer of the interim (i.e. opposition) board of directors of the National Bank, claims that Maduro’s return to power does not affect the decision of the London court, as this made the appointment of the ad-hoc central bank management legal, as a result of which Maduro’s people might not dispose of the Venezuelan regarding gold.
According to Fulton, although since then Maduro is once once more the internationally recognized president of the country, the presidency of the central bank was appointed by the Guaido administration when the international community considered him president, so the central bank appointments are valid and effective, and it is not overridden by the change of the president. The UK court will make its decision in the coming weeks as Maduro’s government prepares to launch another trial in addition to an appeal to decide which party is entitled to access the gold following the Guaido government is dissolved.
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