Portrait of Nicolás Maduro - President of Venezuela

During these years of struggle and advocacy, deep bonds were forged. Maduro managed to make himself useful, if not indispensable. At the same time, he maintained strong links with Cuba, to the point that some believed he was a liaison officer in charge of "watching over" Chávez.

In 1998, Maduro was elected deputy and became head of the MVR parliamentary group. Soon after that, he was elected to the Constituent National Assembly and became chairman of the people’s participation committee. Once the Constitution was adopted by referendum, new legislative elections in 2000 enabled him to regain his seat and his function as leader of the parliamentary group of the presidential majority.

Yet the triumphant march of Chavism faced some obstacles. Thus, the attempt to control trade unions, the pillars of the "old regime" (1958-1998), failed. In 2001, Maduro was the coordinator of the Bolivarian Socialist Workers Force (FSBT), a trade union federation supposed to weaken the powerful sectors affiliated to social democracy that controlled the Confederation of Workers of Venezuela (CTV). In the elections for the CTV's governing bodies, the FSBT was severely defeated and Maduro asked for the election to be cancelled - one of the first displays of his anti-democratic tendencies.

Between 2002 and 2004, the Venezuelan opposition in turn showed little respect for democracy, by trying to get rid of Hugo Chávez in every possible way. On 11 April 2002, it organised an attempted coup (which failed), then in December it declared a "civic strike", which paralyzed the oil industry, and in August 2004, it initiated a revocatory referendum (which also failed).

The Chavist camp became more radical and Maduro played an important role in this new stage of the revolution. In 2005-2006, he was President of the National Assembly and, in 2006, was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by Chávez. His seven-year track record as head of Venezuelan diplomacy is rather good. Latin America’s shift to the left was providential. With the support of Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador, and in agreement with Lula's Brazil, Venezuela deployed an active "petro-diplomacy". Many initiatives were launched, including the creation of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). From 2011 onwards, Chávez, who was already weakened by illness, started preparing Maduro for his succession. The leader of diplomacy then represented his country at most diplomatic summits.

When Chávez died on 5 March 2013, Maduro orchestrated his succession. He acted as interim President and ran as a candidate in the elections organized on 14 April, which triggered a controversy over various interpretations of the Constitution (Articles 229 and 233 in particular). The opposition argued that only the President of the Assembly could act as interim President and that a sitting Vice President could not run in presidential elections. The Supreme Court finally ruled in Maduro’s favor and the elections were maintained. Maduro won a narrow victory, with 50.6% of the votes.

The succession was to be challenging, especially as Chávez embodied the Bolivarian Revolution and its so far positive track record for the low-income social categories in the oil boom context. Oil prices were following a downward trend in 2013 and Maduro did not seem able to manage the looming economic collapse. Moreover, his political supporters were elusive. In six months, the Chavist camp lost 500,000 votes, and its hard core became increasingly radical as the opposition's public expanded. Yet satisfying this loyal electorate could only further polarize the country.
 
The following period was headlong rush forward. The regime stiffened in the face of an opposition that was becoming the majority, but did not deviate from its political line as the country sank into economic chaos and a humanitarian tragedy of an unknown magnitude in the region..

In 2016, the Electoral Council prohibited the revocatory referendum requested by the opposition. In 2017, a new wave of demonstrations was met by police and paramilitary brutalities, resulting in about 100 deaths and thousands of more or less arbitrary arrests. That same year, Maduro had a Constituent Assembly elected, in order to further marginalize the legislative power, and won municipal and governorship elections under suspicious conditions. Finally, in 2018, he was re-elected President, while the opposition boycotted the election.

Maduro orchestrates a context of permanent electoral campaign in order to mobilize his supporters. Unable to stop the collapse of the economy and the humanitarian and migratory crisis it causes, he fosters a climate of war against any external aggression. The official discourse of the international conspiracy against the Bolivarian Revolution builds up on the sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe against certain personalities of the regime, the aggressiveness of the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), and the alleged attempt on Maduro’s life by a drone on 4 August 2018. This narrative galvanizes troops, yet makes it very complicated to envisage a peaceful way out of the crisis.

As he prepares to enter his second term (January 10, 2019), Maduro is a President whose election has been recognized by very few countries in the world, and who governs a bankrupt country. His political family can undoubtedly credit him for having preserved what matters most: the resilience of the regime that has allowed him to share the oil rent for the past 20 years. Nevertheless, Maduro has brought his country to disaster by squandering Chávez's political capital and destroying his social heritage. He may try to imitate Chávez's jovial neopopulist style, but it hardly makes a difference. It is difficult to imagine a way out of the crisis that doesn’t involve his departure, in one way or another.

Illustration by David MARTIN for Institut Montaigne