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Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro.
Maduro’s not going anywhere. What comes next for Venezuela?
Just four years ago, most observers would have bet good money that Nicolás Maduro’s days at the top were numbered.
In 2018, Venezuela’s strongman president had declared himself the winner after a reelection battle that was broadly considered to be rigged. Maduro’s subsequent crackdown on anti-government protesters made him one of the world’s most reviled and isolated leaders.
It’s now been 10 years since Maduro, the foreign minister at the time, was handed the top job, and his power is more entrenched than ever. How has the Venezuelan despot survived and what might this mean for the country's politics and its people?
Meet Maduro. A former bus driver from Caracas, Maduro got his political training as a young man in Cuba. Upon returning to Venezuela, he became a big shot in the union movement and in leftist politics as a member of the United Socialist Party.
An avid backer of Chavismo – the left-wing populism championed by his predecessor Hugo Chávez – Maduro was tapped to take on presidential responsibilities after Chávez's death in 2013.
Like Chávez, Maduro’s authoritarian predilections were apparent from the get-go. Amid growing popular discontent, in 2015 he declared “Operation Liberation and Protection of the People” (the irony!) to address what he called the country’s growing security concerns. Maduro deployed 80,000 security forces to round up alleged detractors, leading to scores of extrajudicial killings.
This leadership style of quashing dissent and jailing political opponents and journalists came to a head after the widely disputed 2018 election, when thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets to protest Maduro’s win, broadly dubbed a sham. The regime’s brutal response to the protests – security forces killed dozens of demonstrators and shuttered independent news organizations – further solidified Maduro’s pariah status in many parts of the world.
The sanctions weapon. The US has used sanctions as a bludgeon against Venezuela since 2006, when the Bush administration banned arms sales to the Chávez regime due to its ties to rogue states, like Cuba and Iran.
But this campaign ramped up a lot during the Maduro years. The Trump administration, in particular, adopted a merciless approach to Caracas, enforcing sanctions that cut it off from US financial markets, essentially limiting its oil sales to the black market and prohibiting purchases of Venezuelan debt.
Venezuela’s economy has since been through the wringer. From once having the highest per capita income rate in Latin America, Venezuela is now flailing. Starved of investment, hyperinflation topped an absurd 65,000% in 2018. The country’s oil output has remained sluggish over the past decade despite the fact that it has the biggest liquid gold reserves in the entire world. Consider that in 1998 Venezuela was producing around 3 million barrels of crude per day – that number slipped to 626,000 in 2020.
To be sure, years of corruption, underinvestment, and mismanagement have also pummeled the petrostate’s economy. In 1997, one independent group claimed that around $100 billion had been embezzled from the state oil company in the preceding 25 years.
Given the heft of Western sanctions, how have Venezuela and Maduro managed to stay afloat?
Who’s isolating whom? Taking a page out of Chávez’s playbook, Maduro has worked hard to cultivate ties with other heavily sanctioned states and US rivals like Iran, Russia, and China, as well as Turkey.
Reflecting its mercantile approach to geopolitics, Beijing has given Caracas billions of dollars worth of loans in recent years in exchange for oil. China has also helped Caracas deliver the goods in violation of US sanctions. Moscow has similarly doled out cash to help keep Caracas afloat.
Maduro has also deepened relations with the US’ forever enemy, Iran, with Caracas sending Tehran billions of dollars worth of gold in exchange for oil, gas, and food. The friendship is deep, with Iran reportedly set to revamp the Paraguana Refining Center, Venezuela's largest, in the near term. Crucially, the overhaul will replace US technology – originally used to build Venezuela's oil infrastructure – with … Chinese and Iranian parts.
Moreover, under Maduro, illicit economies – including trading of illegal drugs, gold, and oil – made up a whopping 21% of Venezuela's gross domestic product in 2021.
The perks of a ”pink tide.” Maduro has benefited enormously from the region’s changing politics. A “pink tide” across Latin America in recent months has seen a slew of leftist governments come to power that are more sympathetic to Maduro’s socialist, anti-imperialist agenda.
“For a long time, diplomacy in Latin America wasn't very ideological because state sovereignty was the most sacrosanct principle,” says Will Freeman, a Latin America expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Governments in the region are now taking a more ideological approach to diplomacy,” resulting in leftist leaders in Colombia, Brazil, Peru, and elsewhere wanting to deepen ties with the socialist in Caracas.
A dysfunctional opposition. It’s been a boon for Maduro that the opposition has proven to be lackluster and underwhelming. Many place the blame at the feet of former wunderkind Juan Guaidó.
After the 2018 election, Guaidó, then president of the opposition-controlled legislature, set up a shadow government backed by the West. But critics say Guaidó made no progress in moving the country toward new elections and that he failed to get the military or courts onside. Popular support has also nosedived, with just 6% of Venezuelans polled in Nov. 2022 saying that they’d vote for him.
After Guaidó’s allies voted to remove him from office in December, the former de facto leader said the move would create a “power vacuum” that would only boost Maduro.
And he might have been right: The Biden administration recently moved to ease some sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector. While this has largely been aimed at boosting production and keeping global prices down amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, it’s hard to imagine that the White House would have felt as comfortable making overtures to the Maduro regime if there was a powerful and popular opposition to deal with in Caracas.
“Venezuela is fixed.” Not quite. Feeling emboldened by Maduro’s staying power, some Venezuelans have adopted the slogan “Venezuela is fixed” — a tongue-in-cheek reference used in the country when conditions mildly improve. They point to the fact that the International Monetary Fund recently predicted that Venezuela's economy will grow by 6% this year, while the poverty rate decreased for the first time in seven years.
But the current political dynamic is more a result of “broad disillusionment and disengagement from politics,” says Freeman, adding that “Maduro has not become popular by any stretch of the imagination.”
What’s more, the humanitarian situation remains grim. Half the country lives in poverty, down from 65% in 2021, giving rise to one of the world's biggest refugee crises in recent years. Venezuela is also one of the world’s most unequal states, with the wealthiest Venezuelans 70 times richer than the poorest. It’s for this reason, Freeman says, that what we've seen is “more of an economic recovery on the surface” only. The foundation remains rotten.
What now? Maduro’s political future is as secure as ever. But there’s no quick fix for Venezuela's economy or its people. Indeed, it’ll take years of investment and billions of dollars to modernize the country's energy infrastructure in order to boost output. And while other petrostates are looking to diversify their economies, Caracas is a million steps behind.
And what about the vote next year? “The elections will be very unfree and very unfair,” Freeman says, adding that “Maduro will steal them if he needs to, though he may not need to if the opposition remains this divided.”
For now, at least, Maduro, often derided as “the bus driver” from Caracas, is likely feeling pretty good about things.
January 6th Committee votes on criminal referrals against Trump.
What We're Watching: Jan 6. panel's final report, Japan's nuclear U-turn, Fiji's unresolved election, Venezuela's opposition shakeup
Jan. 6 committee suggests Congress ban Trump from office
After an 18-month inquiry, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol has released its final report, blaming Donald J. Trump of a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and of failing to stop the insurrection when he knew the situation was spiraling out of control. The report also points fingers at some of Trump’s former wingmen – such as Mark Meadows, Trump’s final White House chief of staff, and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani – naming them as potential “co-conspirators.” So what now? The report lays out steps to prevent this sort of calamity from happening again, including a proposal to strengthen the 14th Amendment's ban on insurrectionists that would prevent Trump and his enablers from ever holding office again. Though the report – which Trump has called “highly partisan” – carries no legal weight, it sends a powerful message to the US Justice Department, which is conducting its own investigation into the Jan. 6 attack.
Japan reverses course on nuclear power
Japan announced on Thursday that it will extend the lifespan of its existing nuclear power plants, restart mothballed ones, and build new facilities to replace those that get phased out. PM Fumio Kishida says this is necessary to maintain the power supply while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But it's a major about-face for Japan, which in 2011 shut down all its atomic plants after the Fukushima meltdown, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. On the one hand, public support for embracing nuclear has turned around recently due to rising energy costs and Japan's push to wean itself off Russian oil and natural gas. On the other, the archipelago remains as vulnerable to seismic activity as it did when a magnitude 9 earthquake triggered a tsunami that rocked Fukushima — not to mention what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Do you think Japan is doing the right thing? Let us know here.
A self-coup in Fiji?
Fiji is known for its pristine beaches, world-class scuba diving, and kava, the mildly hallucinogenic national drink. But its politics have a dark side: Every few years, there's a military power grab. After a recent messy election delivered a hung parliament, an alliance of three opposition parties on Friday confirmed an earlier deal to return former PM Sitiveni Rabuka to the premiership. But current PM Frank Bainimarama won't concede and had responded by deploying the army to help the police maintain "law and order." Many Fijians are suspicious — after all, Bainimarama came to power 16 years ago in a bloodless coup, as did Rabuka in 1987. What's more, the recent unrest has rekindled a long-held beef between majority ethnic Fijians and minority ethnic Indians. We don't know how this will all turn out, but things are not looking good in this Pacific island paradise.
Is Guaido’s time up?
Four years ago, Juan Guaido was touted as Venezuela's rising political star, who was going to rescue the country from strongman President Nicolas Maduro and bring better days to the people of Venezuela. Now, the former wunderkind is on the verge of being ousted as head of the opposition ahead of a vote next week in the National Assembly. At least 70 lawmakers from three of the four parties that make up Venezuela's opposition say they will back a motion to ditch Guaido as leader. “We can’t continue with a strategy that has shown no results,” one lawmaker said. In 2018, after general elections that were broadly seen as a power grab by Maduro, Guaido set up a shadow government backed by the West. But as Maduro has retained control of the military, and Guaido’s domestic popularity has plunged to around 17% – only a handful of Western governments (including the US) now recognize him as the country’s legitimate president. Infighting within the opposition is good news for the Maduro regime, which was already buoyed by the US recently easing some sanctions on its oil sector. Critics say Guaido has made no progress in moving the country towards new elections. But who will replace him?
What We’re Watching: US-China Olympics drama, Venezuela’s struggling opposition, Syria goes narco
US government reps will boycott Beijing Olympics. The US announced Monday that American government officials will not attend the Beijing Winter Olympics. China responded to reports of the diplomatic boycott by saying that the move is a “naked political provocation” and an affront to China’s 1.4 billion people. For months, the Biden administration has toyed with whether to skip the Beijing Games because of China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. Washington, however, has not banned US athletes from competing, which would be a major escalation at a time when US-China relations are at their lowest point in years. Still, from Beijing’s perspective, the move is humiliating and a blow to its prestige on the world stage, particularly if other countries follow suit and pull their representatives, too. Beijing vowed Monday to hit Washington with “countermeasures” if it goes ahead with the diplomatic boycott, though it’s unclear what the CCP might whip up as payback.
Is this the end for Juan Guaidó? Venezuela’s once-potent opposition coalition is on the verge of breaking up after Julio Borges, the leader of a prominent anti-regime faction, quit the group and is calling for new leadership. That means the bell is tolling for Juan Guaidó, who has led the opposition since January 2019 and is recognized as the country’s interim president by the US. But under Guaidó’s leadership, the opposition’s message has failed to resonate with ordinary Venezuelans, many of whom see the group as an infighting mess that hasn’t followed through on its promise of alleviating ordinary people’s economic hardships. Reports that they mismanaged state assets held abroad haven’t helped. Meanwhile, the regime of Nicolás Maduro has benefitted from opposition infighting, as demonstrated by gains made during recent local and regional elections.
Is Syria becoming a narco-state? Powerful cronies of President Bashar al-Assad are raking in billions of dollars from selling captagon, a highly addictive amphetamine similar to speed that's being mass-produced by a division of the Syrian army for export to wealthy Gulf nations, Europe, and even faraway Southeast Asia. According to an exposé by the New York Times, the Syrians went Breaking Bad years ago in order to get cash as the civil war raged and sanctions piled up. But now captagon has become the country's top export, at a time when the amount of the drug captured globally has risen 18-fold over the past four years to more than 250 million pills. So, what can be done about Syria’s narco turn? Not much, it seems. The Syrian government is unlikely to crack down against itself or against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group that helps smuggle captagon out of the country via Lebanon. (If you're interested in the history of the drug and its early links to ISIS, check out this insane episode of the Underworld Podcast.)What We're Watching: Modest hopes for Venezuelan talks, Israel-Poland diplomatic spat deepens, Ebola in the Ivory Coast
Will fresh talks help Venezuela? For just the fourth time in half a decade, the Maduro regime and opposition forces have met for fresh talks to try to chart a path forward for crisis-ridden Venezuela. The negotiations, held last week in Mexico City, were attended by both President Nicolás Maduro as well as opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who in 2019 declared himself interim president after an election widely viewed as rigged was met by mass protests. What's the aim of these talks? Well, depends who you ask. For Guaido's camp, the focus is on free and fair elections, the release of political prisoners, and human rights. (Maduro has shown some goodwill in recent days by agreeing to release opposition politician Freddy Guevara.) Maduro, on the other hand, is desperate to have crippling US sanctions lifted so Caracas doesn't have to rely as heavily on China, Russia and Iran. But because Maduro has refused to give up power, analysts say, the opposition's immediate goal now is to pave the way for local and regional elections in November, as well as to boost the COVID vaccine rollout. The next round of negotiations has been set for next month.
Israel and Poland at loggerheads again: Israel's Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has recalled Poland's ambassador over a newly-passed Polish law that restricts the rights of Holocaust survivors to reclaim property stolen during World War II, and later seized by Poland's Communist regime. Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki says the law aims to stave off grifters who abuse the system to claim property that doesn't belong to them. But Lapid, backed by the United States, hit back saying that it is "an immoral, anti-Semitic law" that prevents any recourse for aging Holocaust survivors, and said Israel may downgrade ties with Poland. This development is just the latest installment in an ongoing diplomatic spat between Israel and Poland. In 2018, Warsaw proposed a law criminalizing claims that Poland, which was home to the world's largest Jewish community before World War II, collaborated with Nazi Germany. Israel criticized the law, which was eventually watered-down, saying it whitewashed Polish complicity in the Nazi genocide (about 90 percent of Poland's pre-war Jewish community was killed in the Holocaust). Unlike Germany, Poland has never passed sweeping legislation providing reparations to Holocaust survivors and their families.
Ivory Coast begins vaccinations for… Ebola: The West African country of Ivory Coast has recorded a new case of Ebola for the first time since 1994. This comes just months after the World Health Organization declared the end of an Ebola outbreak in neighboring Guinea that killed a dozen people, sending shockwaves through the region as it grapples with a dearth of COVID vaccines. Meanwhile, the WHO said it is conducting genetic sequencing tests to determine whether the virus is linked to recent cases in Guinea. Guinea, for its part, sent 5,000 Ebola vaccine doses that Ivorian authorities said are already being used on a "targeted group." The WHO and African Union are monitoring the situation closely given that an Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2018-2020, the country's tenth outbreak, resulted in over 2,200 deaths.A turning point for Venezuela?
For nearly two years, two men have claimed to be president in Venezuela. But after legislative elections over the weekend, one of them may finally lose out.
President Nicolás Maduro's sweeping victory in Sunday's vote will cement his grip on power, while raising big questions about the future of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, recognized by the US and other democracies as "interim president" since 2019. Guaidó and his supporters had gambled on boycotting the election because they said it would be rigged. But now, as a result, he has lost his perch as speaker of the National Assembly, and with it, his legal claim to the presidency.
What does the aftermath of the election mean for the two men vying to rule the country?
First, a bit of background. A lot has happened in Venezuela since Hugo Chávez, the country's charismatic socialist former leader, died in April 2013. When Maduro — who was Chávez's foreign minister — took over, many observers predicted the impending end of the socialist regime as the new president lacked Chávez's popularity. However, Maduro proved resilient, and crucially he kept the powerful military on his side.
Indeed, the strongman president has weathered the storm of Venezuela's staggering economic crisis — caused by his own economic mismanagement and worsened by low oil prices and US sanctions — which has turned the once prosperous nation into a basket case plagued by hyperinflation and shortages. Over 4.5 million Venezuelans have left the country in the past five years.
Maduro won a second term in 2018. But when he was inaugurated in early 2019, Guaidó declared the result illegitimate due to widespread allegations of fraud, and announced that in his capacity as speaker, he was interim president. The US, Brazil, Colombia, and other Latin American nations all recognized Guaidó's claim, while China, Cuba, Iran, and Russia did not. Since then, however, Guaidó seems to have lost his mojo.
An all-powerful president. By winning a majority in the National Assembly, Maduro's Socialist Party has now gained full control of all political institutions in Venezuela. This now secures his ability to to pass budgets, ratify international agreements, and sign deals with foreign companies.
This means, for instance, that Maduro can now spend as much as he wants on his pet development projects, sell more oil to his international allies, and inject much-needed foreign capital into PDVSA, the national oil company. Maduro hopes that these deals will help Venezuelan boost oil production to offset the impact of US sanctions on the country's single source of hard currency exports.
A powerless opposition leader. When the new parliament is inaugurated on January 5, Guaidó and his allies will be out of the National Assembly. This has both domestic and international implications.
In Venezuela, having no parliamentary representation will strip Guaidó of one of the few institutional footholds that he could use to challenge Maduro. What's more, without his claim to leadership of the body, it will become harder for him to unite the country's famously fragmented opposition — especially if he's forced into exile.
Meanwhile, big outside players like Spain — which now refers to Guaidó as the opposition leader, not "president" — have already moved on. In the US, the incoming Biden administration has yet to signal if it will continue recognizing him as Venezuela's "real" president.
What comes next? Guaidó is seeking to hold a popular referendum against Maduro's "usurpation of power." Whatever the result, the only sure thing is that Venezuela's political crisis won't end anytime soon.
Opposition Leader Juan Guaidó: Venezuela in 60 Seconds
I am Juan Guaidó, interim president of Venezuela by our constitution and the mandate of our citizens. This is Venezuela in sixty seconds. Venezuela is a country with the largest oil reserves in the world that today is mired in the worst humanitarian crisis in the history of our continent.
There are 4 million Venezuelans who have been forced to migrate looking for opportunities, some even had to walk thousands of kilometers. 15% of our population. There are no medications at this time. It is above 80% shortage of basic needs plus 2,300,000% inflation. The biggest economic crisis today on the planet. But in spite of that, there is a great potential for recovery, a great energy potential, a great potential in arable land in our country, in human talent that is around the world contributing with its talent, its tools to contribute in citizenship, contribute in society. All this soon can be to the service not only of Venezuela in the return of these Venezuelans, but of the world. A country with great energy potential, with great potential in tourism, 26 ° C all year, the Caribbean Sea, among other things. All this will be very soon placed at the service of Venezuela, the region and the world. This was Venezuela in 60 seconds. I am Juan Guaidó , president in charge.
Thanks and greetings
This is Venezuela in 60 seconds.
Attempted Coup in Venezuela: World in 60 Seconds
What do Spain's election tell us about populism in Europe?
It says that populism is continuing to grow. The VOX party on the far right for the first time breaks through 10%. They are in Parliament, they've got 24 seats, and like so many other countries across Europe that's something that is continuing to grow. Their popularity is mostly in the south, where all of those North African immigrants are coming in.
Can Guaido really organize the biggest protests ever this week?
Given problems of electricity in Venezuela, all the depredation, how much time is spent in waiting in line. They're getting tired after all these months without any real movement against Maduro. No, in Venezuela I think he's he's enormously courageous. He's continuing to get people out there. But I'd be surprised if the biggest protest ever.
Are the Iranians ready to negotiate with Trump?
I think they are. They're blinking because they recognize their economy is going to hell with the Americans squeezing squeezing squeezing including not offering the waivers for a lot of foreign countries to buy Iranian oil. And they don't want to risk a war with the U.S. or Israel or Saudi Arabia, so as a consequence they're saying we're ready to negotiate. Give Trump a quick win in maybe allowing some American prisoners gone, if they can buy off Trump they're going to show some weakness. But ultimately it's showing that Trump's unilateral policy in Iran is paying some benefit.
And go deeper on topics like cybersecurity and artificial intelligence at Microsoft Today in Technology.
Guaidó to GZERO: "Freedom" is the goal
Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader recognized as Venezuela's interim president by more than 50 countries, returned on Monday to Venezuela after nearly two weeks abroad.
His homecoming reignites the contest for power between him and President Nicolás Maduro, who still controls much of the government and the military, despite plummeting popularity and a deepening humanitarian crisis.
Guaidó shared a few words with GZERO Media just moments after he landed and rushed into a crowd of cheering supporters at Caracas' Simón Bolívar Airport. His comments are among the first he has made to foreign media since returning to Venezuela.