On a plane from Madrid to Caracas, I see a guy in a baseball bat with a "mur behind Maduro". It's January 8th. 2 days later Nicolás Maduro is to be sworn in as president for the 3rd time.
Before Hugo Chávez died of cancer in 2013, he anointed Maduro as his successor. But Maduro Chávez is not.
In the last July 2024 presidential election, his people most likely improved his score. Excessively – 51% and somewhat after a decimal.
He believed he would win
Maduro won in 2018 with over 67% support. possibly he did not realize that many chávism bastions had changed their moods – now they voted against the ruling.
Three years ago, the Communist organization distanced itself to Maduro. Social inequality, corrected by Chávez's rule, deepened again.
Invited to Venezuela, observers from the Carter Center for the first time considered presidential elections to be "imdemocratic". The head of the surveillance mission then said on radio in the US that the Venezuelan government "perfectly knows who won".
For months, opposition candidate Edmundo González has claimed that he has adequate printouts from voting machines to prove his victory. In early January, he travelled around the countries of the region, promising to appear in Venezuela on the tenth to "take power"
In a video on X, he reads a call to the army, asking him to consider him the leader of the armed forces and not let Maduro to curse in. He's a bad actor, he's phlegmatically doing the reading, but the temperature in Caracas is rising.
When I land there, González is in Washington, D.C., where the leader of the opposition was declared the legitimate president of Venezuela.
The odor of cigars and Fabuloso
At the airport, Simon Bolivar's name hits me with a acquainted heat wave. And that smell. possibly it's Fabuloso, the favourite cleaning agent in Latin America. Purple liquid, rainbow label.
I lived in Caracas between 2006 and 2008, erstwhile all social indicators soared up, oil gross was redistributed through education programs, wellness services and social construction, and Maduro was abroad Minister.
I worked in the Venezuelan Ministry of abroad Affairs, on the second floor, where the minister's office was besides located. Maduro, a unionist, erstwhile a bus driver, smoked Cuban cigars whose scent was constantly floating in the halls. On the presses that we produced for him 3 times a day, he marked the messages that he was peculiarly curious in: “A deeper analysis, please,” he wrote by hand.
Wanted
On my way to passport control, I see posters about which the worldwide press is thundering: “Wanted”, underneath a image of Gonzalez and a prize: $100,000 for information leading to his arrest. "Cried on suspicion of conspiracy and complicity in violence".
I'm afraid to take a picture. I'm moving on. I know there are armored wagons on the streets of Caracas, and I know there have been many arrests in fresh days.
The line for foreigners is short. My Norwegian passport runs from hand to hand. A young female in uniform invites me to her room. It's on the keyboard. It's on the phone. He's asking about the intent of the visit. Tourism, I say. He asks why Instagram says I'm a writer erstwhile I say she's a sociologist. I'm saying I'm publishing something, but I'm presently on vacation.
I'm calling a friend from the Venezuelan abroad Office. I'm saying they've been holding me for 2 hours. My friend's talking to individual higher.
Along with a group of Spaniards, they lead me out on a flight to Madrid. A colleague from the Ministry of abroad Affairs says that “she cannot aid me if that is the decision of the Border Guard.”
I argue with twenty-year-olds in uniform: – I meet the conditions of tourist entry with a passport from the Schengen country. I can't hear you right now.
I'm pulling an old pass out of the MFA.
– Next time get yourself a letter invitation – the answer is.
On January 9, I fly from Madrid to Colombia.
– Will you effort across the green border?” my brother asks. Chichot wins the tropics' sadness for a while.
A Colombian right goes to the Venezuelan border to protest Maduro. I'm not going. I promise myself that I will go to the coast to Santa Marta, where he died born in Caracas Simon Bolivar, the liberator of a large part of South America, and from there I will compose about the demise of the Bolivian Revolution.
"This inauguration could not be prevented"
On 10 January from Bogota, I watch Maduro's swearing-in ceremony online. At the last minute it is accelerated by almost 2 hours.
– In case the opposition prepares something for the set time of the beginning – a Venezuelan will tell me from which same afternoon I will buy a corny arepa, a national dish of Colombia and Venezuela.
“And what? Has he arrived already?” – Maduro jokes respective times in his speech, referring to González.
He besides accuses opposition and the U.S. of trying to "turn oath into a planet war".
"But this inauguration could not be prevented, and it is simply a large triumph for Venezuela," triumphs.
It besides announces constitutional changes "to strengthen the Bolivian Revolution", without giving details.
On the same day, the US and the European Union impose fresh sanctions on Venezuela.
The United States besides increases the prize for Maduro's arrest to $25 million.
‘Aggressors’
– The utmost right in Venezuela never respected the democratic path. Since the 2002 coup against Chávez, they have tried repeatedly to take over power by force, and now, in January, they had plans to prevent Maduro's inauguration – he will tell me a fewer days later Jorge Arreaza, erstwhile Minister of Higher Education in the Chávez government and erstwhile Minister of abroad Affairs in the Maduro government.
– The only way for the Venezuelan government was to do anything to avoid a coup. Therefore, Venezuelan authorities arrested 130 foreigners and conspiracy Venezuelans – he explains in an online interview. – Venezuela has been subjected to aggression and not only economic, with more than a 1000 sanctions, not only diplomatic, political and media, but besides conventional. The price for president Maduro's head has just been raised and mercenaries have come to Venezuela to kill him and the people around him, who besides have warrants for arrest in the US and designated “behind by head” awards.
The accusations of the United States against Maduro are absurd: fresh York Court claims that it “wants to flood the United States with Colombian drugs.” It's like Maduro controls the Colombian drug market.
“I have blown the sea”
I am besides talking to sociologist Antonio González Plessmann, who organizes a left-wing opposition against Maduro in Caracas.
“On 10 January 2025, a class dictatorship was born in Venezuela,” says González Plessmann.
In fresh elections, Maduro " ignored the will of the people and now needs repression to carry out his neoliberal program," he explains.
– What is Chávez's legacy in present-day Venezuela? – I ask.
– Chávez left behind a program of immense transformations. This allowed average people to emergence up and fight for their rights. He helped millions improve their existence, gain education, open up a debate on how to go beyond capitalism through democratic means.
– What is left of the Chávez project?
– Maduro's government? The minimum wage is $3. Social inequality present is greater than before Chávez came to power in 1999. Maduro's regulation turned chávism into a statue, a poster, an empty slogan. Paradoxically, the ruling usage it to legitimize the antichávez project. But Chávez lives in our struggles, in social movements, in organizations and collectives that inactive fight for socialist democracy.
I'm going to Santa Marta.
On the wall of the hacienda where Bolivar died, I read a quote from his last call: “I have plowed the sea.”
