THE AMERICAN administration of President Barack Obama chose to strike a sour political posture for yesterday’s ceremonial inauguration of Nicolas Maduro as its new President for the next six years to succeed the late Hugo Chavez who died last month after a long battle with cancer.

That negative message of delayed ‘recognition’ from Washington was signalled by new  Secretary of State, John Kerry, who expressed similar sentiments to Maduro’s defeated challenger, Henrique Capriles, in challenging the official results as upheld by Venezuela’s Electoral Council.
But Maduro, who was Chavez’s anointed choice, had a quick and sharp response for Kerry before formally taking the oath as new President, at which Guyana’s Foreign Minister, Carolyn Rodriques-Birkett, was among representatives of Caribbean, Latin America and the wider international community.
Even before Venezuela’s Chief Justice Luis Estelle Morales chose to reaffirm the legal basis for the completely computerized counting of votes, consistent with a 1999 constitutional change to eliminate manual recounts in favour of a “system of audit”, Secretary of State Kerry was ready to go public with this warning message to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, as Capriles kept demanding a recount of the votes:
“If there are huge irregularities we are going to have serious questions about the viability of that (Maduro) government…”
But President Maduro lost no time in offering an angry response: “We don’t care about your recognition. We have chosen to be free, and we are going to be free with or without you…The US intervention in Venezuela in recent months, and particularly during the election campaign, has been brutal and vulgar….”
Accusing the USA of constant interference in Venezuela’s domestic affairs, Maduro declared to the media: “The US interventions in recent months, and particularly during the election campaign, have been brutal and vulgar…”
As acting President, following the death of Chavez on March 5 after 14 years as President, Maduro scheduled new presidential elections for last Sunday (April 14). He ended up with a tense, razor-thin victory (less than two percent) against second-time presidential contestant Henrique Capriles.
Generally perceived as the favoured candidate of the USA, Capriles was first defeated last year by the ailing incumbent Chavez with a 10 percent margin of victory.
The Barack Obama administration had publicly shown no serious interest in either Chavez’s deteriorating health or in easing prevailing political tension between Washington and Caracas that dated back to the second-term Presidency of George Bush.
But by this past Wednesday, while arrangements were proceeding for the inauguration of President Maduro, Secretary of State, John Kerry, chose to go pubic with Washington’s decision to delay official recognition of the new Head of State amid the opposition’s dispute of the validity of the official results.

Kerry and Capriles
Mr. Kerry was apparently so anxious to strike his sour note against President Maduro that he did not bother to even assess the constitutional norms of the Venezuelan electoral process for inauguration of the President.
First, the Electoral Council of Venezuela had endorsed the officially declared results, followed later by a statement by Venezuela’s Chief Justice that the system of manual counting of ballots had constitutionally ended back in 1999 in favour of an “audit system”.
Maduro himself had much earlier told the media of a telephone conversation he had with Capriles in which he assured him of his commitment to the “auditing” of the poll results as constitutionally provided.
However, when violence erupted the following day in clashes between government and opposition supporters, the security forces were ordered to restore an environment of peace accompanied by a threat from Maduro to “firmly crackdown” on any domestic or foreign-instigated attempts to frustrate constitutionally-based governance in Caracas.
Of course, to no surprise, while Secretary of State Kerry was expressing Washington’s reservations against extending “recognition” of President Maduro, governments of the Caribbean and Latin American Region were making public their solidarity by a mix of official presence in Caracas, personal telephone calls and congratulatory messages to Chavez’s anointed successor.
Sadly, yesterday’s inauguration took place against the backdrop of the bloody clashes between rival political demonstrations that left some eight people dead and scores injured, some seriously. That development should at least serve as an urgent reminder for serious dialogue between Maduro and Capriles in Venezuela’s national interest.

Regional concerns
At the time of writing, Maduro’s approaches to governance, including economic and foreign policy initiatives were not known. But with Venezuela’s oil-based economy and as a frontline-initiator for structural social and economic changes in the Caribbean/Latin American Region,  the new President would be conscious of the need to project continuity in friendship relations and, more specifically, trade and economic programmes.
Within our Caribbean Community most member states are beneficiaries of the Chavez-initiated and sustained Petro Caribe project with its quite favourable payment terms. They would also be aware that without Chavez Venezuela’s politics and policies would be different for the revolutionary Bolivarian republic.
When the results were declared and subsequently upheld by the National Electoral Council as a mere 50.7 percent for Maduro to Capriles’ 49.1 percent, it would have underscored a very sobering reality for both vocal supporters and cautious admirers of the Chavez-bequeathed Bolivarian revolutionary development process.
Big issues awaiting pronouncements would include the future of ALBA (Chavez’s economic alternative for the Americas, that also has a military component), in which various CARICOM and Central American states are involved.
The question now is whether Maduro is committed and able to maintain Chavez’s ALBA policies and programmes. And of course, what’s of even more immediate relevance to Venezuela’s CARICOM partners, Petro Caribe, which seems destined to undergo some qualitative changes both in the short and longer term?
Whatever their own interpretations and extent of political and economic relations with Venezuela, it would be most surprising to find any CARICOM member or nation of the Greater Caribbean, Central and South America failing to extend recognition of the Maduro-led government in Caracas.