Nicolás Maduro’s Fanaticism

By: Zulmaire González and Juancarlos Vargas

Venezuelans started to hear of Nicolás Maduro when he was elected Representative to the National Constituent Assembly in 1999. Later, once the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela was enacted, he was elected Representative to the National Assembly and became president of this legislative body in 2005. In 2006, he was appointed Minister of the Popular Power for Foreign Affairs; in this post, he stood out for successfully implementing Hugo Chávez’ foreign policy. Some of his achievements are the creation and, in some cases, the strengthening of new forms of regional integration such as ALBA, CELAC, PETROCARIBE, Venezuela’s admission to Mercosur, normalization of the relations between Venezuela and Colombia, strengthening of relations with non-traditional allies such as the People Republic of China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Belorussia and Russia.

In 2012, Maduro was designated Executive Vice-president by Hugo Chávez, and in December of that year he was anointed as his political heir with the clear mission of maintaining and deepening the socialist revolution begun fourteen years ago. After Hugo Chávez’ physical disappearance, Maduro was appointed and legitimized as Acting President of the Republic by a Sentence of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice dated March 8, 2013, which made a strained interpretation of Article 233 in order to: 1) justify Maduro being the Acting President instead of the President of the National Assembly, as established in the above-mentioned article of the Constitution: 2) not having to remove himself from the office of President in Charge at the time of posting himself as candidate; and 3) being granted all the powers pertaining to elected presidents, among them that of Commander in Chief of the National Armed Forces.

Since Nicolás Maduro’s presence became more frequent in the mass media, we have been able to become acquainted with some personality traits of the individual who started his political life as a union leader in Metro de Caracas, where he worked as a bus driver. Maduro is a fervent follower of Sai Baba (Indian guru who created a spiritual movement), whom he visited several times and whose movement recently gave Maduro its blessing.

During the one hundred and twenty days that Maduro has been heading the Venezuelan government, he has obsessively resorted to the use of Chávez’ figure –to whom he refers in the present tense– by stating that he is still Venezuela’s President. Maduro insistently mentions Chávez in his speeches and has named him 3,456 times in the 16 days elapsed since his death. Maduro conducted an extravagant funeral where he even posed the idea of embalming Chávez’ body and compared him to Communist leaders such as Lenin, Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh. The use of terms such as “father”, “giant”, “Christ of the Latin American poor”, among others, is very frequent.

Likewise, Maduro has shown devotion and admiration for Fidel Castro and the Cuban regime. This has become patent by a speech ringing with praises for Cuba; by wearing on his lapel the five-pointed star after Castro’s usage and then the olive-green military uniform; by playing –and singing– the Cuban national anthem in a nationwide broadcast, and uttering this famous phrase “maybe only the Cuban people possess a solidarity lineage higher than the one Chávez cultivated in this people” (alluding to Venezuelans).

These expressions towards Cuba illustrate Maduro’s intention of awarding the Castro brothers greater importance in internal Venezuelan political decisions, which configures a clear assault against national sovereignty.

From the religious point of view, Maduro shows a marked eclecticism since besides his mentioned devotion to Sai Baba, he has not hesitated to declare himself a Christian and at the same time declares it is a compliment to be called a Communist. In addition, he alternates messages of love and unity with resentment, hate and even homophobic allusions like when he insinuated that the opposing candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski is homosexual just because he is single.

On the other hand, Nicolás Maduro’s speech has characterized itself by the use of expressions that denote a position contrary to the U.S. Government. He started as head of government by declaring two military American attaches accredited by the Venezuelan government as personae non gratae, insinuating that Chávez’ illness had been provoked by “the empire”, and accusing the U.S. of being “crazy hawks” that interfere with the Venezuelan electoral process by ordering “the Venezuelan right to withdraw from the elections or sabotage them.”

The above indicates that the present Acting President of Venezuela and presidential candidate Nicolás Maduro has shown signs of having a personality with fanatical traits that have been reflected in his policies, actions and speeches. The individual anointed by Hugo Chávez Frías as his political heir has been obsessively using Chávez image that he imitates for political purposes. Additionally, he shows devotion to Fidel Castro and the Cuban regime, which could give rise to Cuban interventionism in Venezuelan political decisions. Add to this that Maduro is obsessed with the use of an outdated, anti-American speech, typical of the bi-polar scheme era. All this leads to the conclusion that the Acting President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela with his clear traits of fanaticism represents a risk for the Venezuelan democracy, the stability of the region, the applicability and validity of human rights, and national sovereignty.