Brunswick Geopolitical helps companies understand the complexities and risk in key markets around the world, enabling them to better anticipate, prepare for and react to significant geopolitical events that affect their businesses.
Our “Themes to Watch” looks at some of emerging global themes over the coming months. It includes contributions from Bob Zoellick, Pascal Lamy, George Yeo and Charles Powell, edited by Dominick Donald, former foreign affairs and defence editorial writer at The Times.
Venezuela's two presidents
Nearly a month into Venezuela’s constitutional confrontation and there is no sign of either its presidents giving way. Juan Guaido – the National Assembly speaker who declared himself interim head of state on 23 January – is still leading mass protests and urging his rival to step down so clean elections can choose a new, legitimate president. Meanwhile Nicolas Maduro, the Bolivarian Socialist leader whose inauguration after dubious polls sparked Guaido’s move, is staging his own rallies, insisting he is Venezuela’s only legal president and that Guaido and his supporters are traitors and American puppets. He retains the backing of the constitutional court, the armed forces leadership, the Bolivarian party machinery, and the Cuban intelligence services that provide the nerve center for his regime’s repression; Russia, China, and an awkward squad of leftist states still recognize him as president. Guaido, meanwhile, has been recognized as president by over 40 countries and the Organization of American States (OAS); crucially, US backing has manifested itself in a freeze on the Bolivarian Socialist regime’s assets in and revenues from the US, its last reliable source of hard currency earnings.