<\/p>\n
Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro is facing more international rebuke than at any time in his 12 years in power.<\/p>\n
The self-declared socialist is widely believed to have lost last year\u2019s election by a landslide<\/a><\/span>. That sparked criticism by the United States and others that the vote was stolen<\/a><\/span> and forced Maduro to turn to security forces<\/a><\/span> to repress and arrest opponents.<\/p>\n Now he\u2019s set to be sworn in for a third term Friday, even as the opposition challenger<\/a><\/span> who claims to have won is vowing to return from exile by then.<\/p>\n Maduro seems to have thrived on conflict since the late Hugo Ch\u00e1vez<\/a><\/span> passed the torch of his Bolivarian revolution to his loyal aide in 2012. The challenges have ranged from a drone attack<\/a><\/span> and mass protests<\/a><\/span> over the collapse of the oil-rich economy to an international criminal investigation<\/a><\/span> for human rights abuses and a $15 million U.S. bounty<\/a><\/span> tied to allegations of drug trafficking.<\/p>\n The history of Latin America is full of strongmen who rode out disputed elections only to find themselves ousted in short order, from Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet\u2019s attempt to tamper with votes in a 1988 referendum to Peruvian leader Alberto Fujimori\u2019s constitutionally barred third term in 2000.<\/p>\n Ahead is Maduro\u2019s toughest challenge yet \u2014 one that will determine the future of Venezuela\u2019s already debilitated democracy.<\/p>\n Baseball or politics?<\/strong><\/p>\n A biopic produced for last year\u2019s campaign recounted how Maduro grew up in a working-class barrio of Caracas torn between his love of baseball and student activism.<\/p>\n \u201cMake a decision,\u201d a coach tells the teenage pitcher portraying Maduro in the movie. \u201cIt\u2019s either baseball or politics.\u201d<\/p>\n In real life, after embracing his father\u2019s radical politics, Maduro was sent to communist Cuba in 1986 for a year of ideological instruction \u2014 his only studies after high school.<\/p>\n Upon returning home, he found work as a bus driver and union organizer. He embraced Ch\u00e1vez after the then-army paratrooper in 1992 staged a failed coup against an unpopular austerity government. Around the same time he met his longtime partner, Cilia Flores, a lawyer for the jailed leader.<\/p>\n After Ch\u00e1vez was freed and elected president in 1998, Maduro, a young lawmaker, helped push his agenda of redistributing the OPEC nation\u2019s oil wealth and political power.<\/p>\n International recognition<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2006, Ch\u00e1vez appointed Maduro foreign minister, a recognition of his work smoothing over tensions with the U.S. following a short-lived coup. In that role, he spread Venezuela\u2019s petrodollars throughout the world, building alliances.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was always very disciplined,\u201d said Vladimir Villegas, who has known Maduro since high school and served as his deputy foreign minister until breaking with Ch\u00e1vez.<\/p>\n When Maduro took power in 2013 following his mentor\u2019s death from cancer, he struggled to bring order to the grief-stricken nation. Without \u201cEl Comandante\u201d in charge, the economy entered a death spiral \u2014 shrinking 71% from 2012 to 2020, with inflation topping 130,000% \u2014 and opponents and rivals inside the government smelled blood.<\/p>\n He earned the nickname of \u201cMaburro\u201d among elites for folkish antics like claiming Ch\u00e1vez appeared to him as a \u201clittle bird.\u201d Less than a year into his accidental presidency, hardliner opponents launched demonstrations demanding his exit.<\/p>\n Leaning heavily on the security forces, Maduro crushed the protests. But with supermarket shelves empty amid widespread shortages, they resumed with more intensity three years later, leaving more than 100 people dead. In 2018, the International Criminal Court initiated a criminal investigation into possible crimes against humanity<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n The crackdown continued into the 2018 presidential race, which the opposition boycotted when several of its leaders were barred from running. Dozens of countries led by the U.S. condemned Maduro\u2019s re-election as illegitimate and recognized Juan Guaid\u00f3, the head of the National Assembly, as Venezuela\u2019s elected leader<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n More unrest ensued, this time bolstered by the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d campaign of punishing oil sanctions. Then came a clandestine raid organized<\/a><\/span> by an ex U.S. Green Beret, a barracks uprising<\/a><\/span> and finally the coronavirus pandemic<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n Defying the odds<\/strong><\/p>\n Somehow, after each crisis, Maduro emerged stronger, even if the country\u2019s problems deepened. By 2022, with his opponents vanquished, he took on a new nickname: Super Bigote,<\/a><\/span> a nod to his thick black mustache. It was also a tribute by supporters to his reputation for defying the odds.<\/p>\n He entered the 2024 election with the same mindset, confident that opinion polls showing a groundswell of support for his previously unknown opponent, Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez, were a political weapon leveraged by his enemies and the U.S. to destabilize the country.<\/p>\n