Juan Guaido: the 'kid' taking on Venezuela's Maduro

Caracas,  Juan Guaido survived one of Venezuela's worst natural disasters as a teenager -- the Vargas tragedy -- back when the enigmatic late leader Hugo Chavez was cementing his socialist revolution.

Now president of the National Assembly and unexpected opposition leader, Guaido is the best hope to dislodge President Nicolas Maduro.

The president, a former bus driver and Chavez's hand-picked successor, calls Guaido "a kid playing at politics" but his biggest domestic detractor is a 35-year-old industrial engineer who showed no fear in branding Maduro a "usurper" over his controversial re-election in May.

Those snap elections were boycotted by the opposition and rejected by the United States, European Union and a dozen Latin American countries.

Maduro has a point about Guaido, who on January 5 became parliament's youngest ever president.

He has never been a great orator but now he is at the head of a divided and disorganized opposition, many of whose most prominent leaders are either in exile, prison or disqualified.

What he has managed to achieve already, though, is to get parliament's opposition majority to officially declare Maduro a usurper and denounce his re-election as a fraud, while promising an "amnesty" for all military and government officials that disavow the president.

'Arming teams'

What he hasn't found a solution to, though, is the legislature's powerlessness in the face of a regime loyalist dominated Supreme Court that annuls all its decisions.

"One of his main virtues is arming teams. He understands the differing positions and does everything in his powers to bring them together," 32-year-old deputy Juan Andres Mejia, told AFP.

He has also attracted international support.

United States Vice-President Mike Pence even called him to acknowledge his "courageous leadership."

Guaido has wasted little time in taking on Maduro, last week stating he was prepared to lead a transitional government and call elections, while also sounding the trumpet horn in the hope of galvanizing the long-suffering population to take to the streets next week in a mass protest against the regime.

And although Maduro enjoys the support of the military high command, Guaido hasn't been shy in reaching out to the armed forces seeking the support we would invariably need to stand any chance of toppling the socialist leader.

"I'm a survivor, not a victim," said the married father in recalling the Vargas tragedy of December 1999, when mudslides caused by torrential rain left thousands dead.

Back then, Guaido was living with his mother and five siblings in the coastal state of Vargas.

"I know what it means to be hungry," he said.

His introduction to politics came alongside the generation of students that took part in mass demonstrations against Chavez in 2007.

That movement achieved the distinction of inflicting on Chavez his only electoral defeat in a referendum on reforming the constitution.

"Guaido is a fresh face, considered a man of consensus by the moderates and also respected by the radicals for having taken part in those protests," Diego Moya-Ocampos, an analyst at London-based IHS Markit consultants, told AFP.

He was a founding member of the Popular Will (VP) party in 2009 and has now become its most recognizable face with previous leaders Leopoldo Lopez under house arrest since taking part in 2014 protests against Maduro, and Freddy Guevara having fled to the Chilean Embassy after he was accused of inciting violent protests in 2017.

'Acting president'

Guaido, who actively took part in those protests, became a deputy in his native Vargas in 2015.

He caused political ripples by accusing the state oil company PDVSA of corruption, but still remained far from the political front line.

"To be honest, I didn't know who he was. Hopefully he won't prove a fraud," Jose Hernandez, a 24-year-old administrator who attended a rally in support of Guaido, told AFP.

He has the backing of some international heavyweights, including Organization of American States general secretary, Luis Almagro, who described Guaido as Venezuela's "acting president."

But Mejia says Guaido is taking part in "a difficult game" as Venezuela is "used to personality cults and authoritarian leadership and that's placing a big burden on Juan. Change doesn't depend only on him, it's down to everyone."

So far, Maduro doesn't seem worried and mockingly called Guaido "president of the republic of Wikipedia" in reference to entries in the free online encyclopedia that questioned which of the two was actually in power.

But Guaido has ruffled enough feathers for Prison Service minister Iris Varela to threaten him with jail: "His cell is already prepared."

On Sunday it seemed as if that threat would become reality when Guaido was briefly detained by intelligence service agents but he was released after less than an hour and the government later blamed the incident on rogue agents acting unilaterally, subsequently arresting 12 people.