Caracas, Venezuela (Associated Press) Nicolas Maduro He struts across the stage, flapping his arms to the beat of trap meringue, as shrill chicken sounds blare from a wall of speakers, energizing a crowd of die-hard fans fighting for the re-election of Venezuela’s president.
Campaign jingles are not an afterthought in music-loving Venezuela, and this catchy one about a “fighting cock” that always wins fits the embattled leftist leader’s political moment perfectly.
Since the late Hugo Chavez handed the torch of the Bolivarian Revolution to a loyal aide 11 years ago, Maduro has weathered a string of seemingly impossible threats, from drone attacks and mass protests over the collapse of his oil-rich economy to an international criminal investigation into human rights abuses and a $15 million U.S. bounty on drug trafficking charges.
But Sunday’s election presents his toughest challenge yet and, if he loses, it could be his final fight.
Baseball or politics?
A new biopic produced for the election campaign is revealing new details about Maduro’s upbringing, portraying the future president growing up in a working-class neighborhood in Caracas, torn between his love of baseball and student activism.
“Make a decision,” the coach says as the teenage pitcher who plays Maduro in the film arrives late to the field. “Baseball or politics.”
In the real world, Maduro embraced his father’s radical political ideas and was sent to Communist Cuba in 1986 for a year of ideological training – his only post-high school studies.
Upon his return, he worked as a bus driver and a labor union organizer. In 1992, he supported Chavez after the then Army paratroopers staged a failed coup against the unpopular austerity government. Around the same time, he was married to his longtime partner, Cilia FloresLawyer for jailed leader.
After Chavez was released and elected president in 1998, Maduro, as a young congressman, helped advance Chavez’s policies of redistributing oil resources and political power among OPEC member states.
International Recognition
In 2006, Chavez appointed Maduro foreign minister, crediting him with easing tensions with the U.S. after a short-lived coup. In that role, Maduro spread Venezuela’s petrodollars around the world and built lasting alliances and connections.
“He was always a very disciplined person,” said Vladimir Villegas, who knew Maduro since high school and served as deputy foreign minister until his break with Chavez.
Maduro rose to power after his leader died of cancer in 2013 and struggled to bring order to a grieving country. With “El Comandante” out of the helm, the economy entered a death spiral, shrinking 71% between 2012 and 2020, inflation topped 130,000% and opponents and rivals within the government smelling blood.
He earned the elite the nickname “Mavro” for his folksy behavior, including claiming that President Chavez looked like a “little bird” to him, and within a year of his accidental inauguration, hard-line opponents launched mass demonstrations calling for his removal.
He relied heavily on security forces to quell the protests, but widespread shortages left supermarket shelves empty and protests resumed with greater violence three years later, leaving more than 100 people dead. In 2018, the International Criminal Court opened a criminal investigation into suspected crimes against humanity.
The repression continued into the 2018 presidential election, which the opposition boycotted after several party leaders were barred from running. Dozens of countries, led by the United States, condemned his re-election as illegitimate and recognized National Assembly President Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader.
Further turmoil followed, this time exacerbated by the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against oil sanctions, then secret raids organised by former US Green Berets, a barracks riot and finally the global coronavirus pandemic.
Somehow, with each crisis, Maduro grew stronger, even as the country’s problems deepened. By 2022, with his opposition defeated, he had acquired a new nickname: “Super Bigote,” after his thick black beard, a nod from his supporters to his superhero-like reputation for defeating powerful foes against all odds.
“Maduro has been a huge failure as a president and has little understanding of what it takes to run a modern society,” said David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University who has studied the country for 30 years, “but he knows how to stay in power and should not be underestimated.”
