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Venezuelan president Maduro combined swaggering incompetence with ruthless repression | World News
Few leaders this century have done so much damage to the lives of so many as Nicolas Maduro.
The Venezuelan dictator took an oil-rich nation and reduced it to utter penury and economic collapse.
His misrule was so chronically disastrous, seven million Venezuelans – more than the entire population of Norway – fled.
Maduro on a US warship after his capture
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His presidency will be remembered for his bizarre performances, dancing and celebrating as his economy continued to fail and the US Navy advanced.
His brazen arrogance was breathtaking, joking once he was “bigger than Taylor Swift”.
Trump had put a $50m bounty on Maduro’s head. Pic: Reuters
Maduro failed to live up to mentor’s example
Maduro combined swaggering incompetence with ruthless repression.
For much of his life he was in the shadow of Hugo Chavez, who upturned Venezuela with his brand of revolutionary socialism in the early 2000s, nationalising its oil industry and reducing poverty.
When Chavez died, Maduro succeeded him but was despised by many in Venezuela’s elites as a poor substitute.
Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores greet supporters during a campaign rally in Caracas, in 2018. File pic: Reuters.
Unable to win the popularity of the charismatic strongman he had succeeded, he relied on the secret police, disappearances and persecution to keep his grip on power.
In elections in 2015, Maduro lost his majority in parliament but refused to stand down.
In widespread protests two years later, more than 100 people died. Opposition groups claim thousands were also killed by the secret police and in jails.
Trump announced Maduro and Flores were captured as strikes shook Caracas.
In 2016, Maduro’s fortunes took a turn for the worse when the man who would become his nemesis was elected US president.
Donald Trump imposed swingeing sanctions. The Venezuelan economy went from bad to catastrophic – but Maduro appeared unmoved.
Behind the scenes though, opponents were plotting, hoping for his downfall led by opposition figure Juan Guaido.
He declared Maduro illegitimate and himself acting president instead, recognised by the US and others around the world.
The Maduro regime reacted furiously, shooting at protesters in the streets, even driving over them in armoured vehicles.
But Guaido had miscalculated, believing mistakenly he had enough support to remove Maduro from power. A coup attempt that looked close to toppling Maduro ended in failure.
The unpopular dictator clung on.
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Flores was Maduro’s close political ally and enforcer. File pic: Reuters.
In 2022, his fortunes turned again thanks to events halfway around the world. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the West stopping buying Russian oil.
It turned to Venezuela and its vast reserves instead. Maduro was allowed back in out of the cold.
He was emboldened to pull off one of the biggest election frauds in Latin America history. In elections in 2024 the opposition was considered by most observers to have won a landslide.
Maduro again refused to give up power, declaring victory unconvincingly.
Then in America, Donald Trump was re-elected. He branded Maduro a narco terrorist and sent a seventh of America’s navy to threaten him.
Trump’s campaign against Maduro has been unrelenting: a massive naval deployment and continuing sanctions, designed to encourage internal dissent to bring the dictator down.
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Maduro’s years of rampant kleptocracy leave Venezuela racked with massive economic inequality, its resources robbed and its institutions dismantled.
Most of its people are desperately poor and face a potentially stable and deeply uncertain future.
