The painting seems to have been painted in an oil techniques workshop for retirees, but what is important here is not its artistic value, but its meaning.
In it appears a mustachioed Nicolás Maduro in a blue shirt holding the rudder of a ship with both hands that reads: “Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”
Behind, a large Jesus Christ with an exposed heart on a violet tunic places his left hand on Maduro's shoulder and grabs one end of the steering wheel with his right.
The image is vaguely reminiscent of the scene of Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio on the bow of the Titanic.
The meaning of the painting does not leave much room for interpretation: Maduro runs the country with divine help.
The president has proudly shared the portrait on his social networks.
At 61 years old, the successor that Hugo Chávez hand-appointed when his life was slipping through his hands is more established in power than ever.
Deep down you may believe that there is something heavenly and miraculous in it, but the truth is much more earthly: the former bus driver of the Caracas transportation system has taken advantage of the Chavista vertical structure, the destruction of institutions, military support and the intelligence services to screw themselves into the presidential chair.
He has been there for eleven years and it is most likely that there will be another six more after the elections that are held this July 28 without the participation of his main rival, María Corina Machado, whom the Chavista legal framework has disqualified from paving the way for him. the way.
Maduro in public appears confident in the mobilization of the Chavista base, which according to his revolutionary account has been winning elections in Venezuela for 20 years.
However, as he has plenty of cunning and intuition, he does not blind himself and launches into a face-to-face with Machado in which he would have everything to lose.
She leads him in the polls.
Maduro, in person, is intimidating with his 190 centimeters of height and his friendliness, however contradictory this may seem.
He touches his interlocutors on the shoulder, jokes with them, has witticisms that they laugh at out of commitment.
He is affectionate in public with his wife, Cilia Flores, whom he calls his companion and comrade.
He claims to despise the press, especially the international press, but he finds out everything that is published about him.
Also in networks, of which his son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, gives a good account.
In private, according to those who have met him, he can be overbearing.
More than one ambassador has been reprimanded by him without them being able to barely utter a word.
Former presidents who sometimes try to mediate between Chavismo and the international community are kept waiting hours and days to receive them.
His obsession is to be murdered, so he has denounced more than 20 plots against him.
Attorney General Tarek Tarek William Saab has given this official status by detaining opponents and human rights activists under the vague accusation of terrorism.
When Hugo Chávez died in 2013, and Maduro assumed office as interim president, many seriously thought that the Bolivarian movement had little more time left in charge in the country.
They did not see him as having enough charisma or authority to replace one of the Latin American leaders who will truly leave his mark on history.
Next to him, Maduro seemed like a minor character.
He was a hesitant substitute, who was clearly not ready for that assignment, with fewer attributes than his predecessor and teacher, and at the same time he now had to face a grown opposition movement, on the way to snatching from Chavismo its golden circumstance as the national majority. .
Nicolás Maduro waves a flag during a demonstration to commemorate the anniversary of the initial coup attempt by the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez in 1992.LEONARDO FERNANDEZ VILORIA (Reuters)
Eleven years and almost two presidential elections later, navigating an economic and social storm of his own making, determined to impose the socialist model on every event, still sanctioned by the international community, Maduro has seen how Chavismo was losing social mass, but , as a strongman in a tailor-made structure, enjoys a comfortable grip on power.
The PSUV, the ruling party, has chosen him as a candidate for the 2024 elections, without this being any surprise.
A year ago there was talk of Chavista currents critical of his management, but questioning his power can be expensive.
Or go off script.
Anyone can be purged, no one is untouchable.
Exactly a year ago he ended one of his trusted men, Tareck El Aissami, vice president of the economic area and minister of Energy and Petroleum, what that means for an oil country.
In PDVSA, the state company, a hole was discovered that some sources estimate at 3 billion dollars, a gigantic case of corruption.
A year after that, without knowing the judicial situation he faces due to the opacity of the prosecutor's office, nothing is known about El Aissami.
It seems that the earth has swallowed it.
“Maduro is starting very badly.
He did not see himself in that responsibility.
The 2013 electoral result against Capriles, in which he almost lost the elections, portrayed this.
Despite this, the Chavista roots in the state, in the public powers and in the military sector were evident,” says Luis Salamanca, political scientist and doctor in Social Sciences from the Central University of Venezuela.
The arrival of Maduro aggravated corruption in the Venezuelan state, which thanks to exchange control acquired a systemic character.
Instead of trying an economic opening, as many proposed, Chávez's successor, dogmatized and skeptical of the capitalist economy, decided to radicalize, and toughened the policy of nationalizations and controls on commerce and industry.
The measures produced a serious shortage of goods and services and rising prices.
In 2014 there was enormous social unrest and popular anger took to the streets.
In a nation collapsing under unviable economic postulates, Maduro gave his adversaries and followers continuous demonstrations of character and command.
“Maduro's strength is a consequence of a power structure conceived by Chávez.
He begins with the president and descends in a hierarchical line that imitates in its letter the democratic formulas, but that transforms the structures of the constitutional rule of law.
Maduro is the head of a state-power,” says Salamanca.
Exercising repression - and acting, in private, in a despotic manner among his collaborators when necessary -, Nicolás Maduro, without auctoritas before the rest of the country, very quickly became, and without rivals, the new boss of Chavismo.
A person removes a pile of garbage in Caracas, Venezuela. MIGUEL GUTIERREZ (EFE)
With clever negotiating skills and the ability to work with intelligence agencies, Maduro continued Chávez's orders, and invested a lot of money in expanding the strength of the Bolivarian Police, the National Guard, as well as paramilitary organizations loyal to the cause. , deepening the artillery character of the revolution.
“With Maduro, the destructive trend of the productive apparatus initiated by Chávez knows its continuity, especially the collapse of Petróleos de Venezuela,” says Diego Bautista Urbaneja, lawyer and writer, member of the National Academy of History.
“Oil prices fall, social programs fail due to corruption.
Without popular support, and without the same amount of money, the apparatus of revolutionary power has to harden, a network of party, State, Government, armed forces, militias, volunteers and militants.
Power begins to be exercised relentlessly and without any type of ethical, legal or ideological barriers,” says Urbaneja.
The consolidation of Maduro's power is a reality thanks to the management of two of its fundamental bishops: the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, a soldier with roots in the barracks, who has been developing revolutionary military thought in the institution for years;
and Jorge Rodríguez, current president of the National Assembly, its political operator par excellence.
To this we should add the work of Diosdado Cabello, the second most powerful man in the regime, an authority in the party and the security of the State, who, contrary to what is thought, is not an enemy of the Maduro institutionalism, but rather one of his guarantors as a radical spokesperson and defender of the last line.
“The unrestricted use of the power apparatus, that is the cause, there is no greater mystery in that,” says Urbaneja.
“The democratic forces have an inferiority complex with Chavismo, they attribute supernatural political virtues to it.
There is a provision of perpetual power within the State, a political body that in order to continue existing, if it has to spy, it spies;
If you have to shoot, shoot;
If you have to accuse, accuse;
If he has to imprison, he imprisons;
If you have to negotiate, negotiate.
It can be the Supreme Court of Justice, the National Guard, the PSUV, the Sebin, the Clap stock exchanges, or the buses.”
To these ends, the international support of some allies such as Russia, Cuba, China and Iran has been decisive, which has contributed to strengthening an infallible and unusually effective intelligence apparatus.
In the last year, Maduro had hinted through his negotiators at the dialogue table with the opposition, established in Mexico, that he had the will to follow a democratic path and initiate a transition in the country.
This was sensed in the Barbados agreements, where it was sensed that Chavismo was prepared to hold free and fair elections.
The White House tried to cheer up Venezuela by lifting sanctions on oil and gold, a respite for its battered economy.
ma
Nicolás Maduro arrives at a meeting with the 'National Council of Productive Economy' in Caracas, Venezuela.Carlos Becerra (Getty Images)
Follow all the international information on
and
X
, or in
our weekly newsletter
.