With a new blow to the Venezuelan opposition, the prime minister has left the caretaker government by Reuters

By Deisy Buitrago and Vivian Sequera

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan Foreign Minister Julio Borges, who is serving as Venezuela’s US-backed caretaker government, said on Sunday that he would weaken the opposition a few weeks after it was removed from the regional elections.

The United States and dozens of other countries have acknowledged the government of Juan Guaido and the caretaker government, which was formed in early 2019, and are considering the re-election of Socialist President Nicolas Maduro in 2018.

Borges said the interim government is not fulfilling its goal, according to Guaido, in a press conference online.

“The (interim) government makes sense as a tool to get out of the dictatorship. But at the moment, in our view, the interim government is damaged,” Borges said.

“Instead of being a tool to fight the dictatorship, the interim government … has become a kind of caste,” he said.

Borges lives in Bogotá, the neighboring Colombian capital, where he was granted political asylum after being accused of being part of a plot by the Maduro government against the president.

He is a member of the First Justice Party, one of the four main opposition parties and the national assembly of Guaido’s coalition.

Neither the First Justice nor Guaido’s office responded immediately to requests for comment.

Borges said he would make his official resignation in Tuesday’s legislature and that the caretaker government should “disappear.”

It should only serve to manage foreign state assets such as the US-based Citgo Petroleum Corp refinery, and its political structure needs to change, he added.

Opposition parties’ internal divisions and delayed alliance deals are seen as the cause of losses in the November local and regional elections by analysts and some members of the opposition, when the opposition won just three of its 23 governors.

Maduro told state television that former Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza would be the ruling party’s candidate to run in the Barinas state government elections in January.

The Supreme Court of Justice ordered a new vote because the race was tight and the opposition candidate Freddy Superlano was rejected due to administrative investigations against him.

Opposition groups called for Aurora Silva to step down.