page_title: Juan Guaidó
section_title: Public perception
hierarchical_section_title: Juan Guaidó / Public perception
caption_attribution_description: Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo met with Venezuelan Interim President Juan Guaidó and participated in a joint press availability in Bogotá, Colombia, on January 20, 2020. [State Department Photo by Ron Przysucha/ Public Domain]
context_page_description: Juan Gerardo Guaidó Márquez is a Venezuelan politician, a former member of the social-democratic Popular Will party, federal deputy to the National Assembly representing the state of Vargas. On 23 January 2019, Guaidó and the National Assembly declared he was acting President of Venezuela, starting the Venezuelan presidential crisis by challenging Nicolás Maduro's presidency.
  Guaidó's political career began when he emerged as a student leader in the 2007 Venezuelan protests. He then helped found the Popular Will party with Leopoldo López in 2009, and was elected to be an alternate deputy in the National Assembly one year later in 2010. In 2015, Guaidó was elected as a full-seat deputy. Following a protocol to annually rotate the position of President of the National Assembly among political parties, Popular Will nominated Guaidó for the position in 2019.
  Guaidó has been a key figure in the Venezuelan presidential crisis, which began when the National Assembly, which considered the 2018 Venezuelan presidential election illegitimate, refused to recognize the inauguration of Nicolas Maduro to a second presidential term on 10 January 2019.
context_section_description: Prior to becoming the leader of the National Assembly, Guaidó was an unfamiliar figure to both the Venezuelan and international communities, with the BBC reporting that he was a compromise candidate selected as leader by opposition parties. Venezuelan lawyer and columnist Gustavo Tovar-Arroyo, who was active with Guaidó in the early days of the student protests against Hugo Chávez, described Guaidó as one of the "conciliators" of the student movement, saying that Guaidó had been a force for conciliation in the defeat of Chávez's 2007 Venezuelan constitutional referendum, the 2015 Venezuelan parliamentary election in which the PSUV was defeated by the MUD and that he was named acting president at a time when Venezuela needed conciliation.
  Argentine writer and journalist Andrés Oppenheimer said that Guaidó is "the most courageous and inspiring political figure that has emerged in Latin America in years". Diego Moya-Ocampos, a Venezuela expert at risk analysts IHS Markit, described Guaidó as charismatic, saying that he had "unified a divided opposition". According to a Bloomberg article, he is known for "building unity among fellow legislators". Michael Shifter said that he "has tried to reach out to the military, tried to unify the opposition and tried to reach Chavista folks as well". The Wall Street Journal quoted Father Alfredo Infante, a Jesuit priest in La Vega, who said that people in the barrios "feel connected to Guaidó in a way they haven't with other opposition leaders. He comes from a poor background, and looks like he belongs in the barrio".
  In April 2019, Guaidó was named to Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people in the world for that year. Former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos wrote the profile for Time, which described Guaidó as "young, energetic, articulate, determined" and in possession of "the mother of all virtues: courage". Santos said that "by being in the right place at the right time, [Guaidó] was able to finally unite the opposition and become a beacon of hope for a country that is yearning for a rapid and peaceful change".
  Writing in The Nation, George Ciccariello-Maher called Guaidó a "second-string politician" who "simply declared himself acting president" in a brazen power grab. Ronal Rodriguez, an expert at the University of Rosario's Venezuelan Observatory in Colombia, said that Guaidó is seen as "third-rate" and "uncharismatic". Rodriguez argued that photographs of Guaidó at public addresses made him appear like Venezuela's Barack Obama, but that Guaidó "clearly lacks the former American president’s political skill". The Guardian noted that Guaidó had used the same "rallying cry" as Obama's "Yes we can" ("Sí, se puede!").
caption: Guiadó, alongside US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaks to the press in Bogotá, Colombia in January 2020
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