During a rare news conference this week, Venezuela’s revolutionary socialist president reached for a Bible and read from St John’s gospel: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Some might have thought Nicolás Maduro was referring to the contested results of last Sunday’s election, when the government-friendly electoral authority declared him the winner without any supporting data. But the burly Russian-allied leader was instead speaking about a “violent, criminal, fascist counter-revolution”, which he said was organised by the US and funded by Colombian drug traffickers with the aim of toppling him. This, he claimed, was the truth about last weekend.
Turning to an army commander seated nearby, Maduro barked an order: “General-in-chief, even if you have to deploy another 1,000 troops, we’ll find these people . . . Even if it takes a month, I want them all in jail.” His ministers applauded enthusiastically.
Conjuring up external demons, cracking down on his enemies and painting himself as a heroic defender of his oil-rich homeland have been among Maduro’s favourite tactics since he was anointed in 2013 by a dying Hugo Chávez, the lieutenant-colonel who founded Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Revolution”, as his successor.
So far, Maduro’s strategy has worked. Now 61, he has withstood US sanctions, assassination plots, a bungled invasion by mercenaries, mass demonstrations and diplomatic isolation to notch up 11 years in power.
Venezuelans have paid a high price. The economy collapsed during Maduro’s first term after oil prices plunged and the government overspent. GDP shrivelled by around three-quarters, hyperinflation spiralled to 130,000 per cent and millions left the country, creating a refugee crisis of continental dimensions.
“Maduro’s record is disastrous,” says Cynthia Arnson, a distinguished fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington. “He’s presided over the sharpest economic decline of any country outside of an active war and the oil industry during his watch has become a shadow of its former self, while criminality has run rampant.”
During the Trump administration, Maduro faced “maximum pressure” US sanctions intended to drive him from office. The US and dozens of other nations recognised opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president. Maduro drew closer to China and Russia and adopted free-market policies, using the US dollar as the de facto currency and lifting most price controls. The modest economic recovery benefited mainly the wealthy. Guaidó’s rebellion fizzled and he fled to Miami.
Although Maduro likes to present himself as a humble worker who once drove buses, he grew up in a middle-class family in Caracas. His father was a leftwing activist and his mother a devout Catholic, who sent him to school each day with a blessing.
Nicolás, a film produced by supporters and released before the election, features actors playing him as a happy boy roaming the streets with friends and playing baseball before becoming politically active. “Right from his childhood, he knew exactly what he was doing,” says film director Greizon Chacón. “He is someone who will engage in dialogue . . . but fights for what is right.”
A former US official who had dealings with Maduro confirms this picture. “People have always underestimated him,” he says. “He’s intelligent and he’s capable. He is loyal to the revolution but he is able to dialogue and compromise . . . He is also capable of crackdowns and of ensuring discipline and cohesion.”
Maduro received political training in Cuba in 1986-88, returning to Caracas for a stint as a bus driver before becoming a union leader. After Chávez launched an unsuccessful coup attempt in 1992, Maduro visited him in prison and the two became friends.
Maduro joined a pro-Chávez political movement and met Cilia Flores, an activist lawyer who became his second wife and constant companion (Nicolás Maduro Guerra, his only child, is from a previous marriage). He started as a congressman in 1999, then rose to foreign minister in a political career that has spanned a quarter of a century.
How long can he hold out? If Maduro completes his new term in 2031, he will have governed longer than Chávez. But the opposition has posted its own count online, asserting that it won by a margin of more than two to one. The US has recognised that result. For the first time, voters in poorer neighbourhoods seem to have deserted the government, giving a fillip to the opposition.
Yet the president and his Cuban security advisers can still count on a formidable array of state power. Nationwide protests against Maduro’s disputed re-election were swiftly put down by thousands of riot police, plain clothes security agents, troops and paramilitaries. By Thursday, rights groups said 17 people had been killed and hundreds arrested.
Brazil, Mexico and Colombia have called for the release of election tallies and for talks, but Maduro seems in no mood to compromise. The US state department has offered a reward of $15mn for his capture on drug trafficking charges and the International Criminal Court is investigating his government for alleged crimes against humanity.
Ultimately, his fate is likely to be decided by the powerful military and whether it remains loyal. In the meantime, he is focused on burnishing his image. “I’m just Nicolás Maduro, a student, worker, union leader, constituent assembly member, legislator and foreign minister,” he told the news conference. “And I act out of love.”
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