Jan 3 (Reuters) – Nicolas Maduro ruled Venezuela with a heavy hand for more than 12 years, presiding over deep economic and social crises and resisting pressure from domestic opponents and foreign governments for political change.
His rule abruptly ended on Saturday when President Donald Trump announced U.S. forces had captured him and flown him out of the country.
A 63-year-old socialist and the handpicked successor of the late Hugo Chavez, Maduro was long accused by critics both at home and abroad of being a dictator who jailed or persecuted political opponents and repeatedly staged sham elections.
Maduro, a salsa aficionado with a flair for theatrics, often called opposition politicians “fascist demons” and took pride in resisting U.S. pressure against him, even having his invocation to Trump of “yes peace, not war” remixed into an electronica song.
He was sworn in for a third term in January 2025 following a 2024 election that was widely condemned as fraudulent by international observers and the opposition. Thousands of people who protested against the government’s declaration of victory were jailed.
Venezuela’s opposition, the United States and many other Western countries also considered Maduro’s election win in 2018 to be a sham.
His government’s repressive measures were highlighted by the awarding of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.
After Trump announced last October that he was authorizing CIA operations in the country, Maduro blasted “those demonic powers that aim to sink their claws into Venezuela to steal our oil.” Maduro has long denied U.S. accusations of connections to drug smuggling and corruption.
In August, Washington doubled its reward for Maduro’s arrest to $50 million over allegations of drug trafficking and links to criminal groups.
Trump ratcheted up the pressure in recent months with a huge build-up of the U.S. military in the southern Caribbean, more than two dozen strikes on vessels allegedly involved in trafficking drugs in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, and a ramping up of sanctions.
MADURO DENIED ACCUSATIONS OF RIGHTS ABUSES
A U.N. Fact-Finding Mission found last month that the country’s Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) committed serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity over more than a decade in targeting political opponents.
Maduro long denied abusing political and human rights, instead describing his government as being at odds with what he views as a decades-long imperialist campaign to topple Chavez’s socialist movement and take Venezuela’s oil.
He and his government called sanctions by the U.S. and others illegitimate measures that amounted to an “economic war” designed to cripple the country. His supporters hailed him as a hero who stood up to Washington in the tradition of Cuba’s Fidel Castro.
Protesters led months of demonstrations in 2017 against Maduro’s government, a period marked by accusations of torture, arbitrary arrests and abuse by security forces. Those protests left 125 people dead.
Dozens more died during protests after Maduro’s inauguration to his second term in 2019. After the 2024 election, the U.N. found that Maduro’s government escalated repressive tactics to crush peaceful protests, with over two dozen dead and 2,400 arrests.
Maduro’s rule was marked by an extended economic collapse in the once relatively affluent nation that prompted an exodus of some 7.7 million migrants.
Almost 82% of Venezuelans live in poverty, with 53% in extreme poverty, unable to buy even basic foodstuffs, a U.N. special rapporteur said in 2024 after visiting the country.
BUS DRIVER’S RISE TO POWER
Maduro was born into a working-class family on November 23, 1962, son of a trade union leader. He worked as a bus driver during the time army officer Chavez led a failed coup attempt in 1992.
He agitated for Chavez to be released from prison and backed his fervent leftist agenda in an era when socialism was well out of favor.
After Chavez’s 1998 election, Maduro won a seat in the legislature and spent years championing his mentor’s self-styled revolution against U.S. intervention in Latin America.
Adversaries took swipes at Maduro’s working-class roots and portrayed him as a buffoonish cretin who did little more than slavishly repeat Chavez’s bombast.
But the criticism made little dent in his meteoric rise: he became president of the National Assembly and later foreign minister. In that role he crisscrossed the globe to help build alliances with other developing countries through oil-financed assistance programs.
Maduro was narrowly elected president after Chavez died from cancer in 2013. But there was a gaping chasm between his own appeal and the legendary charisma of his predecessor.
His rule was quickly plagued by bread lines and product shortages that smacked of Soviet-era collapse, largely due to his unwillingness to unwind lavish Chavez-era subsidies that were unsustainable after the oil boom came to an end.
As inflation soared in 2013, Maduro sent troops to occupy shops that sold home appliances and forced them to sell off their wares at fire-sale prices, helping fuel his popularity in the run-up to a nationwide election for mayors.
In 2018, militants attempted to assassinate him by sending explosives-laden drones over the top of a rally he was addressing on a Caracas avenue, leading him to reduce his spontaneous public appearances and limit live broadcasts of public events.
Throughout his career, Maduro was often flanked by his wife, Cilia Flores, who held numerous high-ranking positions, including attorney general and chief of parliament, and was often seen as a power broker with as much influence as her spouse.
Trump said on Saturday Flores was also captured and flown out of the country.
(Reporting by Reuters bureausEditing by Frances Kerry)
Comments