The Americas | WD
OAS Rift Almagro Enjoys Backing of U.S. for Top OAS Post, but Faces Caribbean Opposition BY LARRY LUXNER
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n March 20, the 34 members of the Organization of American States will decide whether to re-elect Secretary-General Luis Almagro to another five-year term. A secret OAS election normally doesn’t make headlines, but Almagro isn’t any ordinary secretary-general. The 56-year-old former Uruguayan foreign minister rose to prominence in 2015 shortly after replacing Chile’s José Miguel Insulza at the helm of the OAS. Under Almagro’s leadership, the institution — long criticized as a toothless bureaucracy — suddenly became relevant again. It took an active stand against human rights abuses in Nicaragua. It played a key role in the November 2019 resignation of Bolivian President Evo Morales after having found “clear manipulation” in the vote that re-elected him. And most significantly, the OAS — and Almagro in particular — have loudly and consistently demanded an end to Nicolás Maduro’s autocratic regime in Venezuela. Running against Almagro are two other contenders for the top job: María Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuador’s former foreign minister and president of the U.N. General Assembly, and Hugo de Zela, Peru’s current ambassador in Washington. Both favor dialogue to resolve the Venezuela crisis and both say the crisis has consumed too much of the OAS’s attention at the expense of other important issues. This has set up an interesting contest between Almagro, who is strongly backed by the Trump administration, and his two opponents, who enjoy the support of some Caribbean nations that have criticized Almagro for choosing confrontation over consensus-building. The Inter-American Dialogue, a Washingtonbased think tank, has been hosting a series of conversations with all three candidates. “The Venezuelan tragedy is, with good reason, the overriding issue in Latin America today. The scale of the country’s refugee and migration crisis is likely to surpass Syria’s this year,” Dialogue President Michael Shifter told The Diplomat. “Almagro has made his mark by being very outspoken and confrontational toward the Maduro dictatorship. It’s hard to think of any previous secretary-general who took such a forceful stand on an issue.” International aid agencies estimate that at least 4.7 million Venezuelans have fled to neighboring Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and other countries over the past five years; the U.N. warns that number could reach 6.5 million this year. Since 2013, Venezuela’s once prosperous oil-based economy has shrunk by an estimated 65%. Hunger, disease, power outages and crime have now become rampant under Maduro, a former bus driver who inherited the presidency from Hugo Chávez in 2013 and whose 2018 re-election was widely denounced as fraudulent. No surprise, then, that all eyes are on Almagro, who enjoys the backing of the United States. After all, Washington funds 59% of the OAS budget. (Almagro is also supported by Brazil, Colombia, the incoming government of Uruguay and several other countries.) In promoting him, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Almagro “is fearless in guarding against authoritarian regimes,” calling him a “secretary-
PHOTO: JUAN MANUEL HERRERA / OAS
Juan Guaidó, Venezuela’s self-declared president, left, greets OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro at the Organization of American State headquarters in D.C. on Feb. 6. Almagro, who is running for re-election this month, has been vocal in his support of Guaidó, although his tough stance on Venezuela has alienated some OAS members.
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[OAS Secretary-General Luis] Almagro has made his mark by being very outspoken and confrontational toward the Maduro dictatorship. It’s hard to think of any previous secretary-general who took such a forceful stand on an issue. MICHAEL SHIFTER
president of the Inter-American Dialogue
general par excellence” and “a model for all other secretaries-general, inclusive of the U.N. secretarygeneral.” But some in the 15-nation Caribbean Community (Caricom) — a significant voting bloc in the OAS — say Almagro is not a model the organization should be emulating and that the body is better off promoting dialogue to resolve the Venezuela standoff. To that end, Caricom members have largely abstained from supporting resolutions critical of Maduro. Many Caribbean governments maintain strong relations with Venezuela as part of the leftist ALBA regional bloc. They also enjoy subsidized oil at preferential prices through the Petrocaribe scheme
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begun by Chávez. Two such countries, Antigua and Barbuda and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, have thrown their support behind Espinosa, who served under Ecuador’s former populist president, Rafael Correa. She also appears to have the support of Mexico, whose foreign ministry — through its director of regional organizations, Efraín Guadarrama — tweeted Feb. 13 that the OAS leadership “needs an urgent renovation” and a “woman secretary general.” (Interestingly, Espinosa has not received the endorsement of her own government; instead, Quito is backing Almagro’s candidacy.) SEE OAS • PAGE 10 MARCH 2020 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | 9
