Venezuela’s ultimate political survivor Nicolás Maduro faces his toughest challenge yet | World news

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is facing more international rebuke than at any point in his 12 years in power.

The self-proclaimed socialist is widely believed to have lost last year’s election by a landslide. It sparked criticism from the US and others that the vote was stolen and forced Maduro to reverse to security forces to suppress and arrest opponents.

Now he will be sworn in for a third term on Friday, even as that the opposition’s challenger who claims to have won, promises to return from exile before then.

Maduro seems to have thrived on conflict ever since the late Hugo Chávez passed the torch of his Bolivarian revolution to his loyal aide in 2012. The challenges have ranged from a drone attack and mass protests over the collapse of the oil-rich economy into a international criminal investigation for human rights violations and a $15 million bounty linked to allegations of drug trafficking.

Latin American history is full of strongmen who rode out contested elections only to find themselves ousted in short order, from Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s attempt to rig a referendum in 1988 to Peruvian leader Alberto Fujimori’s constitutionally barred third term in 2000.

Ahead is Maduro’s toughest challenge yet — one that will determine the future of Venezuela’s already weakened democracy.

Baseball or politics?

A biopic produced for last year’s campaign recounted how Maduro grew up in a working-class barrio in Caracas, torn between his love of baseball and student activism.

“Make a decision,” a coach tells the teenage pitcher who portrays Maduro in the film. “It’s either baseball or politics.”

In real life, after embracing his father’s radical politics, Maduro was sent to communist Cuba in 1986 for a year of ideological instruction—his only studies after high school.

When he returned home, he found work as a bus driver and union organizer. He embraced Chávez after the then-army paratrooper staged a failed coup against an unpopular austerity government in 1992. Around the same time, he met his longtime partner, Cilia Flores, a lawyer for the jailed leader.

After Chávez was freed and elected president in 1998, Maduro, a young lawmaker, helped push his agenda to redistribute the OPEC nation’s oil wealth and political power.

International recognition

In 2006, Chávez appointed Maduro as foreign minister, in recognition of his work in smoothing tensions with the United States after a short-lived coup. In that role, he spread Venezuela’s petrodollars around the world and built alliances.

“He was always very disciplined,” said Vladimir Villegas, who has known Maduro since high school and served as his deputy foreign minister until he broke with Chávez.

When Maduro took power in 2013 after his mentor’s death from cancer, he struggled to bring order to the grief-stricken nation. Without “El Comandante” at the helm, the economy entered a death spiral – shrinking 71% from 2012 to 2020, with inflation exceeding 130,000% – and opponents and rivals in the government smelled blood.

He earned the nickname “Maburro” among elites for popular antics such as claiming that Chávez struck him as a “little bird.” Less than a year into his haphazard presidency, hardline opponents launched demonstrations demanding his resignation.

Maduro leaned heavily on security forces and crushed the protests. But with supermarket shelves empty amid widespread shortages, they resumed with more intensity three years later, leaving more than 100 people dead. In 2018, the International Criminal Court initiated a criminal investigation into possible crimes against humanity.

The crackdown continued into the 2018 presidential race, which the opposition boycotted when several of its leaders were barred from running. Dozens of countries led by the United States condemned Maduro’s re-election as illegitimate and recognized Juan Guaidó, the head of the National Assembly that Venezuela chose. leader.

More turmoil followed, this time amplified by the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign to punish oil sanctions. Then one came organized secret raid of an ex US Green Beret, a barracks riot and finally the coronavirus pandemic.

Defying the odds

After each crisis, Maduro somehow emerged stronger, even as the country’s problems deepened. In 2022, with his opponents defeated, he was given a new nickname: Super Bigot, a nod to his thick black moustache. It was also a tribute by supporters to his reputation for defying the odds.

He entered the 2024 election with the same mindset, convinced that opinion polls showing a surge of support for his previously unknown opponent, Edmundo González, were a political weapon being used by his enemies and the United States to destabilize the country.

The side claimed victory in light of credible evidence of vote fraudMaduro has relied on the security forces to rally opponents. This week, González said his son-in-law was kidnapped by masked men. Carlos Correa, a prominent free speech lawyer, was also dragged away by masked assailants. The government has not commented on any of the cases.

Michael Shifter, a former president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said such acts of repression could indicate weakness that could boomerang against Maduro.

“The key is the armed forces,” Shifter said, adding that the recent downfall of Syria’s ruler, Bashar Assad, has renewed Venezuelans’ hopes for change: “These regimes are very unpredictable and can fall at any moment, even if they look quite strong. If it collapses, it will collapse internally.”

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