Who Is Nicolas Maduro? A Closer Look at Venezuela’s Controversial Leader

Brainbite

8 months ago

Personal Life and Ascent to Leadership

1.Humble Beginnings:

Nicolas Maduro born in Caracas city in the South American country of Venezuela.
He is an agenda Marxist and also a Christian by faith.
Nicolas Maduro, as a teenager, was a guitarist of the rock band, known as Enigma.
He is a baseball lover, and performs salsa with his wife, Cilia Flores whom he calls the ‘First Combatant.’

2.Political Education:

Juan Guaido left Venezuela and became the head of the National Assembly while Nicolas Maduro took up the post of a trades unionist for the metro workers of Caracas.
Earlier, in 1980s, he went to communist Cuba for political training.

3.Initial Political Roles:

Thus, Nicolas Maduro was in the National Assembly when Chavez came to power and was even an aide to the president for a time.
He was the speaker for the legislature and later became the foreign minister in 2006.
Maduro later on worked as the nation’s vice president until Chavez’s death in 2013.

Presidency and Crisis Management

4.Becoming President:

Maduro was a chosen one by Chavez to capture the presidency of the country, as Chavez expected.
He won his first election in 2013 with a small margin after Chavez, his predecessor died of cancer.
Ever since then Maduro has been faced and managed countless crises.

5.Authoritarian Tactics:

Organizations for human rights have claimed that Maduro is moving towards authoritarianism so as to hold on to the presidency.
He has been accused of oppression of the opposition groups with many people being arrested and political opponents harassed.

6.Election Controversies:

In a recent conducted election the CNE electoral body loyal to Maduro announced that he attained 51. Even 2% of the votes are against 44. was 2% for opposition rival Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.
The opposition has said that Nicolas Maduro won only 30% of the vote while Urrutia just got 70%.

7.State-Sponsored Propaganda:

Maduro received enormous state propaganda; therefore, it can be frankly argued that Venezuelans fall into deceit when they listen to the radio.
His image is plastered on building facades and his voice booms from TV channels.

8.Economic Turmoil:

Venezuela, during whose presidency Maduro was, went through critical economic problems and crunches.
Lack of food and skyrocketing inflation rates put millions of people from Venezuela in a forced necessity to migrate.
They also witnessed a drop in global crude prices that worsened the situation of the economy.

International Relations and Sanctions

9.Facing Sanctions:

Nicolas Maduro was subject to international boycott mainly after his illegitimately won 2018 election.
Over fifty countries did not acknowledge his victory in 2018.

10.Alliances with Autocratic States:

Venezuela has continued to develop relations with such powerful countries as China, Russia, and many other authoritarian states.
These relationships have helped to an extent in ensuring that the country is economically in a sound state.

11.Anti-American Conspiracies:

The current president Maduro lingers on criticism of USA and other western countries for the economic woes of Venezuela.
He claims that American militants are planning to assassinate him.
Public Image and Realpolitik

12.Iron-Fisted Rule:

Currently, Maduro has subjugated all the branches of power – the judiciary, the legislative, the military and the states.
He has been accused of closing the freedom of speech by closing the channels and detaining people who exercise their rights without proper legal procedure.
Venezuela is even in some sort of trouble facing the rights violating charges by the International Criminal Court.

13.Populist Persona:

They try to present the Dictator Maduro as the “Worker President”.
For example, he calque his English language speech deliberately with such terms and phrases that he will never be accused of being elitist.

14.Super-Bigote:

For improving his popularity, the president Nicolas Maduro satirically developed a TV and online character of Super-Bigote or, in English, Super Moustache.
Portrayed as a super hero with a cape, this character is one of the few fighting imperialism.

15.Gallo Pinto:

Thus, Maduro chose the symbol of fighting cock, or “Gallo Pinto,” emphasizing his health against the 74-year-old oppositionist, Edmundo Gonzalez Urritia.

Resilience and Adaptation

16.Surviving Assassination Attempts:

A year before the current events, on June 28, 2018, failed with the drone attack, which affected several members of the army.

17.Negotiating Sanctions:

Last year, Maduro achieved the release of a number of restrictive measures imposed by the US only after he agreed to organise elections.
However, he was unable to honour those conditions in the later dates, thus resulting to the reimposition of the sanctions in April.

18.Economic Concessions:

Nevertheless US still permits the oil major companies such as Chevron and Repsol to seek the permission to work in Venezuela.

19.Ongoing Challenges:

Thus, Maduro is still to face unstable political and economic processes.
The former continues to draw a buzz in Venezuela and across the world as a disjointed and highly unpopular ruler.

Conclusion:

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been quite persistent despite facing many challenges in his presidency. His ways of exercising his authority are rather provocative, and when this fact is combined with the critical financial situation in the country, it becomes clear that the president is highly polarizing. Answering to this question, it is still possible to acknowledge that Maduro as a leader of Venezuela tries to build the future of his country challenging various internal and external challenges and cooperating with sanctions and criticism.