Ramachandra Babu/©Gulf News
When Hugo Chavez anointed Nicolas Maduro to succeed him as Venezuela’s President, few realised that he would become Latin America’s Robert Mugabe.
After all, Maduro had a reputation as a conciliator. He was physically imposing — a big, burly man — but not charismatic and not known for ambition. The former bus driver had limited formal education and gave the impression of rising through the revolution’s ranks — head of the national assembly, foreign minister, deputy president — at Chavez’s behest.
Though raised a Roman Catholic, he was a follower of the late Indian spiritual guru Sai Baba and was a bit of a hippy with a penchant for John Lennon and Led Zeppelin. “Our side is peace, love and tolerance,” he said.
Three years on, that sounds Orwellian. Venezuela is a basket case and Maduro, 54, is on his way to dictatorship.
The government banned protests and mobilised 370,000 troops for last Sunday’s vote for a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution and grant Maduro more powers. The election was boycotted by the opposition, and has been denounced around the world as an attack on democracy. It comes after four months of street protests and
violent repression that have left more than 100 dead, thousands in jail and the country in chaos.
The rearrest of two of Venezuela’s most prominent opposition leaders in midnight operations on Tuesday prompted further condemnation of Maduro’s government — which was already accused of attempting to seize absolute power in the crisis-hit country.
Since April 1, when widespread protests began against the government, more than 121 people have been killed. According to the prosecutor’s office, 16 died on Sunday during the election. More than 5,000 people have been detained by security forces in the past four months, and 1,389 remain in custody, according to Foro Penal, a human rights group. By the organisation’s count, there are 498 political prisoners in the country.
Maduro called the controversial constituent assembly earlier this year, arguing that the move would create peace and foster dialogue in a deeply polarised country that is suffering a severe economic crisis. The opposition blames government mismanagement, while the government lays the blame on what it calls an “economic war” against Venezuela.
On Monday, the United States imposed individual economic sanctions on Maduro, calling him a “dictator who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people”.
It had previously frozen the assets of 13 senior government officials and managers at the state oil company.
But the measures are largely symbolic, and the US has so far held back from imposing broader sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry — which could have a devastating impact on the country’s economy. Maduro brushed off the move, saying: “The threats and sanctions of the empire don’t intimidate me for a moment. I don’t listen to orders from the empire, not now or ever. Bring on more sanctions, Donald Trump.”
The country is reeling from power cuts, hyper-inflation, rampant crime and shortages of food, medicine and other basic goods. With foreign reserves evaporating, Venezuela may default on billions of dollars of debt payments. All this in a country with bigger oil reserves than Saudi Arabia.
Instead of trying to negotiate a truce with the opposition or flee, Maduro has doubled down in Miraflores, the presidential palace in Caracas, and cast this as an existential moment. “We have no other option between winning and dying,” he told a rally outside the palace walls last week. “The oligarchies of the world have reacted because they fear a new Venezuelan constitution. Who do we obey? In Venezuela, the people govern.”
In person, Maduro can be affable, even charming. The son of a union leader, he began his political career as president of the students’ union at Jose Avalos high school in El Valle, a working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Caracas. He is remembered as a flexible, pacifying figure who liked to negotiate.
And the movement he heads — chavismo — was once a beacon for the world’s Left, a socialist revolution that won elections, empowered the poor and challenged US hegemony in Latin America. Now, in Leftist circles, Maduro is seen, at best, as an embarrassment — the heir who screwed up Chavez’s legacy.
In reality, Venezuela’s ruin is rooted in Chavez’s rule, a 14-year melodrama of populist thunder, marathon speeches, televised stunts, creeping authoritarianism and bungled economic policies that ended with the comandante’s death from cancer in 2013. Chavez bequeathed grave problems — and Maduro made them worse.
After leaving school without a diploma, Maduro reportedly considered joining a rock band before a studying stint in Cuba. Back home, he joined Venezuela’s Socialist League and drove a bus for the Caracas Metro company. He became a union negotiator and, in the early 1990s, a member of the civilian wing of Chavez’s insurrectional military movement.
Chavez, a former tank commander, was in jail for a 1992 coup attempt.
Maduro met and married Cilia Flores, part of Chavez’s legal team. When Chavez won the 1998 election, the duo became a power couple, Maduro rising to head the national assembly, Flores becoming attorney general.
In 2006, Chavez appointed him as foreign minister, a role he performed dutifully for six years, breaking and mending relations with Bogota, assailing Washington, wooing Tehran, briefing Havana.
As Chavez’s cancer worsened, he named Maduro his deputy and heir in December 2012. Some wonder whether Maduro really wanted the crown, but either way, he accepted it. Venezuela swiftly discovered a newly garrulous, combative and folkloric Maduro. He claimed Chavez’s spirit visited him in the form of a little bird.
He won a disputed election in 2013, but the slender margin shook the revolution — millions of supporters abstained in protest at economic woes. Two years later, the opposition swept national assembly elections.
Maduro faced a dilemma. Price and currency controls as well as expropriations and nationalisations withered agriculture, manufacturing and tourism. Tumbling oil revenues made it harder to mask the fiasco.
Despite the protests and sanctions, the former bus driver trundles on, taking Venezuela over a cliff.
— With inputs from Guardian News & Media Ltd
