How Nicolás Maduro has been able to cling to power in Venezuela
This handout picture released by Miraflores palace press office shows Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro (C) during a visit to an industry in an event to boost the basic businesses in Guayana, Venezuela on March 6, 2019. – Sanctions have worsened Venezuela’s crippling economic and political crisis, the UN human rights chief said Wednesday, as Washington warned it may expand measures targeting President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government. (Photo by HO / Venezuelan Presidency / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE – MANDATORY CREDIT AFP PHOTO / PRESIDENCIA VENEZUELA – MIGUEL ANGULO – NO MARKETING – NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS – DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTSHO/AFP/Getty Images
By Mary Beth Sheridan | The Washington Post-March 9, 2019
And yet, Nicolás Maduro has so far withstood intense pressure from Washington and a Venezuelan anti-government movement that has filled the streets for weeks. The opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, who has posed the strongest challenge to Maduro since the former union leader assumed the presidency in 2013, has called for a big demonstration Saturday.
How does Maduro manage to cling to power? The short answer is that the authoritarian leader has the military on his side. He has ensured their loyalty by offering promotions and allowing them to enrich themselves through state businesses or criminal activities, analysts say.
The Trump administration may face a complicated calculus in the next few weeks. The harsh sanctions it imposed in January on Venezuela’s crucial oil industry may soon start to asphyxiate the country’s already weak economy, and the military may resist diplomatic and economic pressure to split with Maduro.
“What happens if you don’t break that military structure and the country continues to deteriorate? You have the terrible scenario of a Cuba or an Iran or a Syria or a Zimbabwe,” said Luis Vicente Leon, head of the Datanalisis polling firm, referring to countries whose authoritarian governments dug in and survived, despite profound economic and political crises.
Guaidó — who has the support of around 60 percent of Venezuelans, according to a recent Datanalisis poll — and the United States have tried a variety of approaches to lure the military away from Maduro. They range from private talks to a proposed Venezuelan amnesty law that would shield officers from future prosecution.
The trouble is, many senior officers are deeply compromised. Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez, who sought to carry out a left-wing “Bolivarian revolution,” allowed officers to make money through activities as varied as organizing the state-run food distribution system and protecting drug traffickers, analysts say.
“The law of amnesty isn’t attractive enough,” said Felix Seijas, a social scientist who teaches at the Central University of Venezuela. “Those who are compromised are very compromised. The amnesty law will not benefit them. Those who aren’t that compromised won’t need the amnesty law.”
To accept an amnesty, military officers would have to trust that a future government would pardon them and that institutions would follow the law. But it is difficult to predict how a new government would essentially rebuild Venezuela’s institutions, which for two decades have been molded by the “chavista” movement, becoming highly politicized.
Complicating matters, Cuban advisers to the Venezuelan military work to prevent defection, surveilling officers to guarantee their loyalty, according to diplomats, analysts and former military officers. “We have to remember these [Venezuelan] guys are being advised by the Cubans, who are masters of staying in power — 60 years and counting,” said Brian Winter, a Latin America expert at the Americas Society in New York.
That’s not to say the military is solidly behind Maduro. The economy has been so devastated by mismanagement and corruption that hunger is widespread, even among mid- and lower-ranking officers. Prices are soaring, and food and medicine are scarce.
More than 700 low-ranking soldiers have fled across the Colombian border in recent weeks, many complaining of limited food and dissension in the ranks.
“We have lots of information suggesting that just as most Venezuelans are clearly unhappy with this regime and want it to come to an end, most members of the Venezuelan military feel the same way,” Elliott Abrams, the U.S. special envoy for Venezuela, said Friday at a press briefing in Washington.
Soldiers “may get a small and inadequate lunch at the barracks, but that doesn’t help your aunts and your uncles and your cousins and your brothers and your sisters,” Abrams said.
Leon noted that anti-government movements trying to replace authoritarian leaders in other countries have sometimes had to make unpalatable choices to ensure the military was in line. In Nicaragua, for example, when Violeta Chamorro won the presidency in 1990 and ended a decade
of left-wing Sandinista rule, she gave a top Defense Ministry job to Humberto Ortega — the brother of the outgoing president. In Chile, Augusto Pinochet was permitted to stay on as head of the armed forces after stepping down as president.
But ultimately, Leon said, in Venezuela, the issue isn’t whether the military is loyal to Maduro. “The military is not defending Maduro,” he said. “They are defending themselves.”
The Washington Post’s Carol Morello in Washington and Rachelle Krygier in Miami contributed to this report.
