The rise and fall of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro : NPR

MEDELLÍN, Colombia — On New 12 months’s Eve, simply three days earlier than U.S. army personnel would rouse him from sleep and ship him to a New York Metropolis jail, President Nicolás Maduro drove by way of the middle of Caracas, narrating town’s landmarks to a pleasant interviewer.

As he steered, he lingered on historical past and nostalgia. He recalled a 1959 speech by Fidel Castro in downtown Caracas, marveled at his childhood house, and, after 40 minutes of dialog, lastly acknowledged the U.S. warships gathered off Venezuela’s coast.

“If they need oil, Venezuela is prepared for U.S. funding like Chevron,” Maduro stated in a video broadcast by state tv. “Every time they need it, wherever they need it and nevertheless they need it.”

The olive department he gave the impression to be extending was, after all, too little and too late for the Trump administration, which stated it had been negotiating the phrases of his exit. However it revealed how Maduro has lengthy moved at his personal tempo, detached to deadlines imposed by adversaries.

His rise had been sluggish, starting in youth politics and formed by the mentorship of the nation’s strongest determine, Hugo Chávez . His fall, too, unfolded over years. As president, he presided over greater than a decade of insurance policies that despatched Venezuela’s financial system into free fall and helped drive the migration of tens of millions from the nation.

“I feel that is the impact of negligence and a scarcity of empathy for Venezuelan society,” stated Boris Muñoz, a Venezuelan journalist who interviewed Maduro as a lawmaker in 2003 and has reported on him since. “There have been many moments when he might have stepped apart or corrected course, and he did not do it. He simply stored going.”

When Maduro assumed the presidency in 2013, Muñoz wrote a profile for the Mexican Journal Gatopardo, the place he particulars how the chief was formed by far-left politics from an early age.

He grew up along with his dad and mom and three siblings in a two-bedroom condominium in southern Caracas. His father held management roles in an area staff’ union, and as an adolescent Maduro, sponsored by the Socialist League, spent a 12 months in Havana finding out politics. When he returned, he drove a bus and rose to steer a staff’ union within the Caracas metro system.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez locations a reproduction of the sword of XIX century hero Simon Bolivar beside an urn that holds the “symbolic stays” (soil from the frequent grave) of his mistress Manuela Saenz, on the Nationwide Pantheon in Caracas, July 6, 2010.

Juan Barreto/AFP through Getty Pictures

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Juan Barreto/AFP through Getty Pictures

After Chávez swept to energy in 1998, defeating the once-dominant center-left Acción Democrática and center-right Copei events, Maduro was elected to Congress. In 2006, Chávez elevated him to international minister, inserting him on the middle of a political undertaking obsessive about Simón Bolívar, the early nineteenth century Andean colonial liberator, born in Caracas. Bolívar dreamed of Spain’s former colonies in Latin America uniting towards the skin world, a spirit that Chávez embraced, often invoking Bolívar’s title in speeches, and together with it within the new title the nation adopted below the structure Chávez put in place in 1999: the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

“Chávez had a military of spokespeople, however Maduro was outstanding amongst them,” Muñoz stated. “He was very loyal, and he was an excellent surrogate for Chávez’s needs and whims.”

The loyalty proved decisive. Earlier than dying of most cancers in 2013, Chávez hand picked Maduro as his successor, entrusting him with a rustic already buckling below the load of dependence on oil, and the conclusion that prosperity was coming to an finish.

Venezuela had ridden a increase fueled by traditionally excessive oil costs — the lifeblood of its financial system and nearly its sole export — however that cushion collapsed not lengthy after Maduro was sworn in as president in 2013. As the author Alma Guillermoprieto noticed in her current e book, The Years of Blood, Chávez had acquired fortunate: “He had the nice fortune to die earlier than the invoice arrived for the havoc he wreaked on the financial system.”

Maduro quickly presided over the collapse of what had as soon as been one among Latin America’s most affluent economies.

His authorities leaned closely on the state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. to dispense patronage and shore up political loyalty. As deficits mounted, authorities ordered the Central Financial institution of Venezuela to print cash, a transfer that rendered the native Bolívar forex successfully nugatory, stated José Guerra, an economist who spent 20 years on the Central Financial institution and served within the Nationwide Meeting from 2015 to 2021.

The consequence was financial devastation on a historic scale. From 2012 to final 12 months, Venezuela’s gross home product shrank by almost 80 %, in keeping with figures from the Worldwide Financial Fund. Inflation in 2018 exceeded 65,000 %.

A motorcyclist rests below a banner in help of President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro throughout a stroll across the outskirts of the ‘El Palito’ refinery on December 18, 2025 in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela.

Jesus Vargas/Getty Pictures South America

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Jesus Vargas/Getty Pictures South America

The collapse set off one of many largest migration actions on the planet. At the very least 7.9 million Venezuelans have fled the nation, in keeping with the United Nations Refugee Company, looking for security and the means to feed their households. Many have crossed the usually lethal rainforest passage of the Darién Hole linking Colombia and Panama on their option to the US. Most have remained elsewhere in Latin America.

“Maduro acquired an financial system in disaster, and he made issues worse by naming folks to prime positions who knew nothing about governing,” Guerra says.

Inner opposition to the regime grew to become extra obvious, as Maduro scrambled to manage a course of he deemed as democratic. In 2024 the Carter Heart for Democracy, the one impartial group allowed to watch Venezuela’s presidential election, stated the Maduro authorities imposed so many restrictions — together with barring main opposition candidate María Corina Machado from operating — that the vote couldn’t be thought of authentic. Based mostly on 81% of ballots tallied by its observers, the middle stated opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia gained in a landslide with 67 % of the vote. González fled the nation, Machado was pressured into hiding, and Maduro declared himself the winner.

The Division of Justice’s case towards Maduro connects Venezuela’s financial collapse to accusations of drug trafficking, saying he’s accountable for operating an enormous drug-trafficking operation flooding narcotics into the US. In his New 12 months’s Eve interview, he rejected claims that he was the top of a “narco-terrorist” crime organisation, and stated the true goal of the U.S. was to grab Venezuela’s pure assets.

He’s scheduled to make his first look Monday in federal courtroom in New York. In a video posted on Saturday by the White Home, two U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration brokers in New York grip his arms and escort him away, as he stands tall, smiles and desires onlookers a cheerful New 12 months — a strongman fashioned within the certainties of a revolution, however with the implications of his rule lastly closing in.