Christian Marxist Nicolas Maduro re-elected president of Venezuela for third time despite opposition's rejection

Nicolas Maduro a été réélu pour un troisième mandat ce dimanche. XinHua – Li Muzi

Le président sortant Nicolas Maduro, 61 ans, a été réélu pour un troisième mandat à la tête du Venezuela ce dimanche 28 juillet 2024.

The designated successor to Hugo Chavez in 2013, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, considered a trade unionist of no consequence by his detractors, has managed to stay in power by ruling the oil-producing country with an iron fist, winning a third six-year term on Sunday in an election contested by the opposition.

Foreign Ministers from 2006 to 2013

Tall, with a proud moustache, the 61-year-old former bus driver frequently recalls his origins and likes to cultivate this image of a man of the people, simple and down-to-earth.

He enjoys to evoke common sense, to massacre English words, to talk about baseball or his TV evenings with his wife Cilia Flores, the "first fighter", a former prosecutor omnipresent on the Venezuelan political scene.

“It's a genre he gives himself. For English, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs for years (2006-2013). It's hard to believe that he doesn't master it perfectly”, confides a diplomatic source.

By designating him in 2012 as his heir, a year before his death, Hugo Chavez (1999-2013) had praised “one of the young leaders with the best abilities” to take the head of the country.

Many have underestimated him. He has managed to assert himself against his rivals within the Unified Socialist Party (PSUV), of which he is president, and to maneuver in the face of the huge protests – harshly repressed – that followed his contested 2018 election, boycotted by the opposition. And the police and judicial apparatus are at his service, imprisoning opponents or activists.

He has also managed to survive an unprecedented economic crisis, economic sanctions, the pandemic and corruption scandals worth billions of dollars.

While foiling plots, real and imaginary, which he regularly denounces.

A “dictator” according to the opposition

Propaganda has dedicated a cartoon to him, where he is presented as a “Super-Bigote” (Super-mustache), superhero "indestructible !" who, like Superman, defends Venezuela against the monsters and villains that are the United States or "opponent-saboteurs".

For this election campaign, Maduro has called himself “Gallo Pinto” (fighting cock), highlighting his good physical shape compared to that of his opponent Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, 74 years old.

He does not have the charisma or eloquence of a Chavez, but spends hours on television or on the networks with a well-oiled communication. Combining pure and hard political discourse, sometimes heavy jokes and personal asides, he knows how to keep a crowd in suspense.

A sympathetic image that clashes with his way of running the country, which relies largely on the army and the security apparatus. The opposition accuses him of being a "dictator".

Faced with the economic crisis and behind the socialist discourse, Mr. Maduro has cut all social spending, eliminated import customs duties to allow the resupply of a country that lacks everything and authorized dollarization to curb hyperinflation.

Marxist and Christian

Intransigent in his anti-American discourse, Mr. Maduro also knows how to negotiate on the sly.

He thus managed to have American sanctions lifted from November to April while the ineligibility of the main opponent Maria Corina Machado was confirmed.

He also managed to obtain the release of two nephews of Cilia Flores convicted of drug trafficking in the United States, and especially in December of Alex Saab, considered one of the main intermediaries of Venezuela, imprisoned in the United States for money laundering.

Although he still calls himself a Marxist, he supported the beatification by the Catholic Church of José Gregorio, the “doctor of the poor”, in 2021. But above all, he has made a shift towards the Christian evangelical churches. Some see this as a maneuver aimed at an electoral windfall. Others a true faith.

Mr. Maduro can be summed up as follows: “Bolivarian (from Simon Bolivar, born in Venezuela and emblematic figure of the emancipation of the Spanish colonies in South America), Marxist and Christian”.