Hugo Chávez's Successor Inherits Goodwill, Hard Times
Hugo Chávez's Successor Inherits Goodwill, Hard Times
AS/COA’s Eric Farnsworth says Vice President Nicolás Maduro will have to “prove his legitimacy rule” amid political divisions within the Chavista movement.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Nicolas Maduro, a stocky former bus driver who never finished high school, takes power with a deep reserve of goodwill from supporters of Hugo Chavez — but also severe problems that may soon exhaust it.
When Maduro, 50, faces voters as early as next month as the successor to Chavez, who died Tuesday after a long battle with cancer, he will almost certainly win election in his own right. But the late comandante left behind a society mired in crime and economic problems that may soon sap support for his protege. Maduro has little of his mentor's charisma or political skill — and it's not clear that he can even count on unity within Chavez's movement….
"Chavismo will be part of the Venezuelan and Latin American story for many decades, that of Chavez as a quasi-religious figure, the Jesus Christ of the poor," said Jose Manuel Puente, a professor at Advanced Management Studies Institute in Caracas, known by its Spanish initials IESA. "Maduro will benefit and capitalize on that."
But eventually Maduro will have to "prove his legitimacy to rule," said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Washington office of the Americas Society. That task is made easier by Chavez having anointed him as his successor in December — but perhaps complicated by a sense that he didn't earn the position through election….
Doubts remain, however, that Maduro can fill Chavez's shoes.
"He has little independent political base and he has obvious potential rivals within the Chavista movement," said Farnsworth. Those competitors include National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, who is allied with the armed forces….
Farnsworth expects Maduro to try to divert Chavistas' attention on domestic problems by bashing the United States. Venezuelans got a preview of that strategy hours before Chavez died Tuesday, when Maduro expelled two military attaches assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, and seemed to blame the United States for Chavez's cancer. The U.S. State Department described the charges as "absurd…."
