Nicolás Maduro, the permanent simulacrum

At the end of April 2013, at the Chacao Reading Festival in Caracas, I participated in a conversation with writers Rodolfo Izaguirre and Leonardo Padrón. The idea was for us to talk about the journalistic chronicle and its relationship with reality. Just a few days earlier, Nicolás Maduro had been sworn in as president of Venezuela. His victory by a narrow margin (1.5%) over Henrique Capriles had generated controversy and allegations of fraud. At some point during the talk, with his characteristic wit, Izaguirre said that Maduro reminded him of the story of the cow in the top of a tree: “Nobody knew how it had gotten there. Nobody knew how it was kept up. But everyone knew it was going to fall.” There was laughter and applause.

Eleven years later, the cow is still in the same place.

In December 2012, before undergoing another surgical operation, Hugo Chávez asked Venezuelans to elect Maduro as his successor, should something happen and he became incapacitated. No one really knew who Maduro was. He was known for the positions he had held: he had been foreign minister, president of the National Assembly, and a deputy for the ruling party. In some sectors of the opposition, however, it was said that he was the best possible “heir”: although he came from the extreme left, he did not seem to be a radical; he was a civilian, not a military man; he had a reputation for being conciliatory, open to dialogue. References to his character and personality floated in those generalities that always need quotation marks: “good people,” “easy-going,” “a nice guy...” Even so, the question quickly became a national enigma: why had Chávez chosen him? And who was Nicolás Maduro really?

Unlike his mentor, who used to exaggerate his biography on a daily basis, Maduro offers a rather simple personal story, lacking tension or heroic ambition. He was born in Caracas in 1962, into a middle-class family. As a child, he liked sports and music. As a young man, he began to get involved in social struggles and politics. Nothing too different from the resume of other men and women of his generation. In his most recent official biography, the book Nicolás Maduro. Presente y futuro, written by Ana Cristina Bracho and published this year, the chapter entitled “Nicolás, who is he?” begins with these sentences: “He is a tall man with a good sense of humor. That seems to be how everyone who is close to him sums him up. Spiritual, protective, passionate and a joker.” It is certainly not an epic definition. It is not the portrait of a leader.

The life story of Nicolás Maduro is full of inaccuracies, gaps, and ambiguities. His supposed “working class” origins are as unclear as his “worker” status: he himself has said that he started working in the Caracas transport system, where he was a bus driver, not out of necessity, but is response to a strategy of his political party. Although he was a student leader in high school, he never went to university. His formal political education is limited to a few months in a school for cadres in Cuba. Some minor details — he was supposedly the bassist in a rock group and it is known that at one time he was a follower of the guru Sai Baba, for example — reinforce the idea that Maduro does not have his own narrative, that his life is a strange potpourri where there are more coincidences than clear personal aspirations. Chávez’s decision to designate him as his heir also fuels this perception. Maduro’s presidency does not originate from a desire, but was imposed as a duty.

All of this probably fueled the initial underestimation with which many sectors of the country regarded Maduro. He seemed like a blurred figure, a leader created by circumstances. But the truth is that, in 2012, Chávez and Maduro had already been working together for 20 years. Maduro’s political destiny changed with the coup in 1992. Like many others, he went to the Yare prison to meet the coup leaders. From that moment on, a relationship began that became increasingly consolidated. He was Chávez’s foreign minister for the last six years of the former president’s life. They travelled the world together. The country did not know Maduro, that is true. But Chávez did. And he knew what he was capable of. That is why he settled on him.

The most radical sector of the right has always maintained that Maduro was elected by the Cubans, that he was merely an instrument of Castro-communism. Obviously, the presence and power of Cubans in Venezuela is undeniable, but it is not the only element that explains our reality. Chavismo has transformed itself into a complex corporation, with different groups that Maduro has managed to control, administering and distributing the different spheres of command and wealth. Along the way, other leaders and other references have been left out, including the Chávez family itself, which no longer appears on the country’s political map. From power, Maduro reinvented himself. He turned his lack of charisma into a talent.

The lack of his own narrative can also be an advantage. Maduro seems to have learned to live in a permanent simulacrum mode. He says whatever he wants, however he wants. He says and disavows things in any way, and before any audience. He is a Cantinflas with revolutionary pomp; a Cantinflas who aspires to be Gramsci. He does not need a voice of his own. It is not necessary. He is the representation — or the endless succession of representations — of what the corporation requires. He can promise everything. He can offer peace negotiation and violent aggression at the same time. He can invoke God and denounce a satanic war against Venezuela. He can accuse Elon Musk and Gabriel Boric of being cronies and of wanting to destroy him. He can dance like Karol G. He can reach out to Trump and insult imperialism. He is not delusional. He only fulfills his task; he follows a strategy. His mission is to confuse in order to make the absurd seem credible.

But everything has a limit, even political madness. After the elections of July 28, desperate attempts to hide, camouflage, and finally prohibit reality have left Chavismo in such a huge state of disrepute that even its natural allies — Lula da Silva, Gustavo Petro, and a good part of the Latin American left — have questioned the murky process of Maduro’s self-proclamation. The refusal to publish the electoral records, as well as the lack of control in the production of excuses and accusations to justify his actions, has caused the spectacle to fail, giving way to the other version of Maduro, the one that has a terrifying record in the reports of the UN Human Rights Commission.

The so-called Operation Tun Tun, which refers to the action of various repressive bodies arresting any citizen without a warrant, takes its name from a typical Venezuelan Christmas carol whose chorus says: “Tun Tun, who is it? / People of peace / Open the door for us, it’s already Christmas.” At a public event held on August 7, Maduro sang the Christmas carol, changing the lyrics to include a mockery of the detainees and the name of the prison where they have been sent. This also defines him. From the banality of evil to the trivialization of cruelty, to the celebration of state terrorism. More than 1,500 people have already been arrested.

Instead of accepting reality, Maduro wants to destroy it. Rather than acknowledge others, he prefers to destroy them.

The cow is still there, clinging blindly. Of the tree, there is almost nothing left.

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