Chavez's pal or US-backed rich kid: Who will inherit Venezuela?

Published time: March 06, 2013 16:29

An election to be held in Venezuela in 30 days will likely see a tough stand-off between “the Chavez man” Nicolas Maduro and the late president’s main opponent, US-supported Henrique Capriles Radonski.

Three months prior to death, Hugo Chavez made it clear to his loyalists he wanted Vice-President Nicolas Maduro to replace him if he did not win his battle against cancer.

The chosen successor had already made a momentous declaration just hours before Chavez’s death, laying the blame for the Commandante’s illness on his political enemies and announcing that two US Air Force officials had been expelled from the country for spying on the military and plotting to destabilize the country.

Maduro made it all the way up to the top of Venezuelan political elite from a grassroots level. He was a bus driver and later a trade unionist for the workers of the Caracas Metro transport system. Maduro got acquainted with Hugo Chavez while he served his prison term for an unsuccessful 1994 coup. Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, was a lawyer leading Chavez's defense.

In 2006, Maduro became Venezuela’s Foreign Minister. In 2012, he took the vice-presidency, and now he is the country's interim leader.

The daunting task of pursuing ‘Chavismo’ without Chavez now rests upon his shoulders, with the majority of analysts believing Maduro is capable of rising to the occasion. His grassroots past is likely to be advantageous, winning him respect from the poor and the underprivileged, the bulk of the late president’s loyalists ‘Chavistas’. As for the army, it has already pledged support for the interim president.

“Despite his lack of charisma in comparison to Chavez, Maduro is in many ways a very, very popular figure in Venezuela and one who would naturally win election... were it not for meddling from the United States,” geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser told RT. 

And that meddling is now embodied in Chavez’s main opponent in the past election, the 40-year-old governor of Miranda State, Henrique Capriles Radonski. He “coincidently enough was in Miami and New York within the last 48 to 72 hours. Obviously, they are going to be gearing up for a battle royal [at the snap presidential elections within 30 days],” author and historian Gerald Horne told RT.

Preferred travel destinations can sometimes tell a lot about one’s political views. For Maduro it’s Cuba, whereas Capriles favors the US.

“This has also been typical… over the past decade, really, for members of the opposition of Venezuela to frequently come to the United States to meet with their… financiers, because they get multimillion dollar funding from the US government or its different agencies,” Eva Golinger, author and lawyer said to RT.

FULL STORY: http://rt.com/news/maduro-capriles-will-chavismo-survive-chavez-883/