Venezuela Scores Victory as US Fails to Secure Votes for OAS Suspension

The Venezuelan government celebrated the U.S. defeat at the voting session trying to expel the Bolivarian country from the Organization of American States (OAS) during the 48th General Assembly, falling five votes short from the 24 needed to suspend a country from the body.

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“A NEW DEFEAT for the @VP Mike Pence and imperialism!! They have not and won't be able to defeat the people of BOLIVAR!! #VictoryofVENEZUELA,” tweeted the Venezuelan Vice President Tareck el Aissami.

The Communication Minister Jorge Rodriguez also celebrated Venezuela's victory on Twitter. “Victory for Venezuela: they've been two years with the same 19 votes. Pence can't violate the American dignity not even with all pressures,” said Rodriguez.

On her part, the President of the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) Delcy Rodriguez also tweeted: “Bolivar's sword devastated the imperial circus against Venezuela!”

“The U.S. government unleashed all kind of shameful pressures and threats to keep on attacking the Venezuelan people! Latin American and Caribbean honor imposes itself against the neo-liberal lackeyism! Long live the Great Fatherland!,” Rodriguez tweeted.

The General Assembly of the OAS approved a resolution Tuesday the paves the way to suspend Venezuelan from the organism and doesn't acknowledge the legitimacy of the May 20 elections, in which incumbent President Nicolas Maduro was reelected.

But while the body had approved a motion to include the suspension of Venezuela in its agenda, the resolution still needed approval from the foreign ministers of at least 24 of the 35 member States.

The resolution was proposed by the U.S. and backed by the 14 countries that make up the so-called Lima Group: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Saint Lucia.

The Dominican Republic, Bahamas, Jamaica and Barbados also voted in favor of the resolution.

The 11 countries that abstained were Surinam, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Uruguay, Antigua and Barbuda, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Haiti and Nicaragua. Meanwhile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines voted against.

Only two times in OAS's history has a state been suspended: Honduras, in 2009, after a coup ousted President Manuel Zelaya; and Cuba after the revolution announced its Marxist-Leninist inclinations in 1962.

But while the U.S. and its allies have failed for the second time to suspend Venezuela from the organization, the Bolivarian government has already announced in 2017 it was leaving it on its own will, but due to official procedures, it won't stop being a member state until 2019.