Ten years of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela: a presidency of dubious origin supported by the Castros

Niccolo Maduro survived 10 years of stormy and stormy government, whose presidency was questioned and rejected by the same April 14, 2013 when he assumed power following a dubious election and fraudulent, which have never been cleared up for their own benefit.

The dubious origins of his first electoral victory with 50.66% and his internationally unrecognized presidential re-election in 2018 marked his performance throughout his government, described as the worst that Venezuela has had throughout its contemporary history.

In Venezuela, the presidential term is 6 years and there is no second round.

His rival Henrique Capriles Radonsky, standard bearer of the opposition in 2013 and who obtained 49.09%, went so far as to state on the Ana Rosa program of Spanish television that Maduro he stole the election because he refused a scrutiny verification by a difference of 0.33 points of the vote after acknowledging his victory.

Capriles, who will run in the opposition primaries on 22 October as the favorite of madurism, assures that he has not fought electoral theft to “avoid a civil war”. He also recently claimed to have opposed the popular uprising of 2014, led by Leopoldo López, currently in exile in Madrid.

Usurper or fraud?

But if we add to the obscure electoral origins the doubts that exist about the fact that Maduro, 60, was born in Colombia or Venezuelatherefore the presidency of the country poses the dilemma of whether the power is in the hands of an ambitious usurper OR a great forger who managed to fool half the world.

The truth is that this bus driver and union member of the Caracas Metro, without presenting a high school diploma from his studies but with a record of medical remains archived in his subway file, he never presented a clean and transparent electoral certificate of origin to be president of Venezuela.

He has not done so in either presidential election. Nor did she present her birth certificate to clarify any doubts about promoting him.

The man from Havana

Being “the man from Havana”, as the Castro brothers called him after having followed a political course for cadres in Cuba in his adolescence, made him become a the bridge and spokesperson for the Castro fans in front of Commander Hugo Chávez.

During these 10 years, Cuban influence was shared with that of Ecuadorian Rafael Correa in the last 3 years, especially in the Venezuelan economy.

Before being president, Maduro was foreign minister six years during which he cultivated and deepened his relationships with his peers on the left, radicals and terrorists, from the São Paulo forum, the Middle East (with Hezbollah and Hamas) and Asia.

It was time to The $100-a-barrel oil boom when I could charter planes for 240 passengers between friends and family.

Before dying of fulminant cancer, Hugo Chávez presented him as his heir. It was a kind of political testament. “Vote for Maduro”, he said dying, on his deathbed in December 2012, before leaving for Cuba for the last time.

Fidel and Raúl Castro they had prepared the transition from Chávez to Maduro. They had even invented Chávez’s electronic signature, the so-called “rabo de cochino”, to include it in the documents for the transfer of powers between the CNE and the Supreme Court of Justice, while they kept Chávez in artificial life, to adapt the laws to the measure of Maduro’s tonnage.

In Venezuela, the signing of deeds before registers and notaries must be in person and not electronically. But both the commander’s signature and his gaze were painted on the city’s buildings show the ubiquity and omnipresence of the commander “eternal and galactic”.

protests and repression

A year after taking power, opposition leader Leopoldo López decided to promote the 2014 protests, but they were heavily repressed during the four months that lasted across the country. The balance was 43 protesters killed and more than 200 imprisoned.

Another wave of protests erupted in 2017 with more than 100 protesters killed. The protests have diminished in intensity but continue to be carried out by small union groups of workers and retirees, who earn $5 a month. This is how more than 20 protests are organized daily in different cities.

There are more than 300 civilian and military political prisoners after 10 years of repression and torture of dissidents in the regime’s prisons. The most important are exchanged for sanctions or foreign prisoners, depending on the interest of the moment shown by the Chavista government.

Maduro’s cunning managed to buy and divide the opposition parties to stay in power. Also turn off and check the media print, radio and digital. Last year, the regime shut down nearly 100 radio stations and more than 50 digital media that cannot be opened locally due to the official censorship and control the regime imposes on the internet.

Economic destruction Maduro is King Midas in reverse, paradoxical as it may seem in the country with the largest oil reserves in the world: everything he touches turns into ruin and destruction. in his 10 years more than 500,000 businesses have closed and about 700 industries have been expropriated by his regime, according to the census of the National Council of Commerce (Consecomercio).

The national economy has suffered a brutal 80% decline in GDP, and has improved by 40% in the last 4 years. Hyperinflation reached over 35,000% two years ago. Poverty has gone from 45% to 95% of the population and is now 82%according to the Encovi survey of the Andrés Bello Catholic University.

As if that weren’t enough, the bolivar also sank. From 2007 to 2021 the national currency has undergone a mutilation or amortization of 14 zerosforcing Maduro to push for dollarisation on the advice of Correa’s Ecuadorian advisers.

The critically poor sector, 56%, no longer rummage through garbage every day to provide for their daily meal ration, but once or twice a week according to surveys, but the migration of 7 million Venezuelans who flee in search of a better place, life abroad has not stopped.

Maduro surprised by jailing about 35 executives of the state-owned oil company Petróleo de Venezuela (PDVSA) for misappropriating tra 3,000 million and 23,000 million dollars. He also arrested the 7 leaders of the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana (CVG) and the former director of immigration and former governor of Trujillo, Hugo Cabezas.

But he didn’t put super oil minister Tareck El Aissami, his favorite financial arm, behind bars. in a sort of open war between Chavismo mafias. The former oil minister does not have an arrest warrant but has been on the run since 6 March.

The lawsuit has become something of an open war between Chavista mafias, where detainees receive privileged treatment in the Chavista judicial system. They even surprise by parading in their imported orange overalls (in Venezuela prisoners don’t wear uniforms) without shackles or handcuffs in front of the courts with the “mafia dolls” of the corruption network.

The staging of the alleged fight against corruption could have different readings. It would be retaliation or revenge by Maduro against those involved in the loss of oil funds to finance his 2024 electoral campaign or a “purge” operation trying to wash his face to compete in better conditions in the next presidential elections.

Caracas, special for Clarin