Julio Borges is a representative of the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is seen at a meeting of the Lima Group in Brasilia, Brazil on November 8, 2019. REUTERS Adriano Machado File Photo
CARACAS, Dec 5 Reuters -- Julio Borges, the politician who serves as the foreign minister for Venezuela's U.S.-backed interim government, said on Sunday he would leave his post, further weakening the opposition just weeks after it was routed in regional elections.
The United States and dozens of other countries recognize the interim government, led by Juan Guaido and formed at the beginning of 2019 and consider the re-election of President Nicolas Maduro to be fraudulent.
Borges, whose differences with Guaido are well-known, said in an online press conference that the interim government is not serving its purpose.
The interim government makes sense as an instrument to get out of the dictatorship, but at this moment, the interim government has been deformed, according to Borges.
He said that the interim government has become a kind of caste instead of being an instrument to fight the dictatorship.
Borges lives in Bogota, the capital of neighboring Colombia, where he was granted political asylum after Maduro's government accused him of being part of a plot against the president.
He is a member of the First Justice Party, one of the four major opposition parties and part of Guaido's coalition in the national assembly.
Neither First Justice nor Guaido's office responded immediately to requests for comment.
Borges said he will make his resignation official during a legislative session on Tuesday and that the interim government should disappear. He said that it should only serve to manage foreign-based state assets like the U.S. based refiner Citgo and its political structure must be rejigged.
Internal divisions within the opposition and slow alliances between parties are seen by analysts as one of the main causes of losses in local and regional elections in late November, when opposition candidates won just three of 23 governorships.