Opposition lawmaker pledges continued challenges to executive war powers after legislature blocks Venezuela resolution
Opposition lawmaker pledges continued challenges to executive war powers after legislature blocks Venezuela resolution
The latest cross-party effort to constrain the head of state’s war authority in Venezuela has reportedly failed, but the opposition lawmaker behind the initiative vows to continue pursuing limits on executive military power globally.
A senior member of the opposition party from a coastal region plans to maintain pressure on the leader’s policing authority worldwide, believing he can secure support from ruling party members to advance war powers legislation through the upper chamber.
“The other thing we’re going to do is this: We’re going to be filing a whole lot more war powers resolutions,” the lawmaker said following the unsuccessful vote to advance his resolution.
The opposition member argued that this resolution, while unable to advance through the legislature this time, was similar to a war powers measure he filed after a 2020 strike ordered by the current leader that killed a senior Iranian military official.
That previous resolution reportedly garnered eight ruling party votes in a legislature controlled by the ruling party at the time.
“When you do it, and you get [ruling party] votes, it sends a message to the executive residence,” he said.
The opposition lawmaker and a ruling party member from a southern region, who co-sponsored the latest war powers resolution, previously suggested that future attempts to constrain the leader’s war authorities could focus on Greenland, Iran and Cuba.
The opposition member’s optimism stems from an earlier successful vote to curtail the head of state’s war powers in Venezuela this month, where five ruling party members in the upper chamber broke ranks with their colleagues to advance a resolution that would have required the leader to consult with the legislature before future military action in the region.
However, that same coalition reportedly could not withstand a pressure campaign from ruling party leadership in the upper chamber, the head of state, and administration officials.
The two lawmakers who reversed their positions - one from the industrial heartland and another from the interior - did so following assurances from the administration, chiefly the foreign minister, that no ground forces would be deployed in Venezuela.
The lawmaker from the industrial heartland received written assurance from the foreign minister on the day of the vote, stating that should the leader “determine that he intends to introduce the nation’s armed forces into hostilities in major military operations in Venezuela, he would seek legislative authorization in advance (circumstances permitting).”
The opposition member said that while the outcome was disappointing, and the head of state and ruling party leadership engaged in a “full-court press unlike any I’ve seen in 13 years here” to prevent the resolution from succeeding, divisions within the ruling party remained evident. The lawmaker believed these divisions could be exploited further.
“The way cracks grow is through pressure and the pressure campaign that I sort of decided to launch by use of these privileged motions. I’m going to file every one I can to challenge emergencies, to challenge unlawful wars, to seek human rights reports, arms transfers if they’re wrong,” he said.
Observers note this continuing struggle reflects the nation’s ongoing tensions between executive and legislative authority over military intervention, a pattern common in many democracies grappling with the balance of war powers.