Chavismo on high alert to protect Nicolás Maduro’s inauguration

Chavismo has learned to live in a constant state of combustion, particularly after last July’s presidential election. Nicolás Maduro, upset by the erroneous information he received during the campaign — that his victory was “assured” thanks to the mobilization of his faithful followers, government workers and their families — has placed the government on high alert and is unwilling to leave anything to chance. Especially when it comes to January 10, the day he is scheduled to be sworn in as president for another six years, in spite of well-founded suspicions that he committed electoral fraud. Maduro and his team are analyzing all possible scenarios: a military insurrection, an invasion, even the return to Venezuela of Edmundo González Urrutia, the true winner of the presidential election according to voter tallies collected by the opposition and which the current regime has refused to make public.

The general feeling is that these possibilities are unlikely, and that Maduro will almost certainly be sworn in as president without any major issues. “In truth, I see the powerful and cruel enemy as being deactivated for any subversive plan,” says a Chavista leader who is very close to Maduro. But that doesn’t mean the president will not remain alert when his big day comes. The administration is looking to convey an image of strength, and the last days of 2024 left us with propaganda such as images of Diosdado Cabello — a retired military officer with the rank of lieutenant who accompanied Hugo Chávez during an attempted coup d’état against Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992 — shooting a rifle. Cabello, whom Chávez considered as his potential successor before opting for Maduro, now serves as Minister of the Interior, a position he has held since the post-electoral conflict, signaling Chavismo’s intent to fill the government with radicals. He has been speaking for weeks of an “imminent” threat for which they are well prepared.

“Whoever tries to mess with Venezuela is going to pay dearly. They will be able to enter if they want to, their problem will be to get out of this land,” Cabello said last Sunday in La Guaira, at the inauguration of a training center for the Bolivarian National Police, during which he showed off his rifle skills in videos broadcast by the state propaganda apparatus. “There are no few threats against our country every day from different parts of the world, internal enemies and external enemies,” he added, before assuring that there are 20,000 troops trained in special forces operations throughout Venezuela, who have been deployed with the “best armament for defense.”

Previously, patrols that typically increase in number during the Christmas season incorporated the military’s rapid response units, the so-called URRA, light maneuver units that can adapt to different missions and operational zones. The Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino, accompanied by Cabello, appeared in front of television cameras delivering armored vehicles for internal use to the National Guard. In the streets of Caracas, the number of police checkpoints and patrol units of hooded men armed with large guns have been added to what appears to be a coordinated strategy to dissuade any threat to the government by means of intimidation.

Cabello has also become the government’s spokesperson when it comes to its recent arrests of foreigners in the country, which Chavismo has referred to as evidence of “terrorist plans” that confirm its narrative of an ongoing international siege bent on “destabilizing Venezuela.” The series of arrests has included three Americans, one of them a member of the U.S. Navy; José María Basoa Valdovinos and Andrés Martínez Adasme, two Spaniards who were on vacation in Venezuela and who are now accused of being agents of their country’s National Intelligence Center; and the latest case of Argentine military officer Nahuel Gallo, who came to visit his partner and who is now under investigation for terrorism.

Chavismo has linked the activities of criminal gangs, such as the Tren de Aragua, which for years operated out of a prison in Venezuela, with the opposition and the organizational structures it designed for the electoral campaign. This, after years during which the government denied the very existence of Tren de Aragua. In so doing, authorities are attempting to criminalize the “comanditos,” civic groups made up of volunteers working for the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, who mobilized on the day of the election to support the candidacy of Edmundo González. A majority of the 2,000 people arrested at the time belonged to the groups, leading Cabello to remark that 2025 will be characterized by the fight against “the organized crime gangs that end up being used by fascism,” a term he commonly uses to refer to the adversaries of Chavismo.

From the undisclosed location where she has taken shelter, Machado has sent out a message expressing optimism, and has asked citizens to continue mobilizing in the streets. “The time has come,” she announced in the caption of a video posted to social media. “For our children, for our beloved land, for our Freedom. It depends on you, on me, on us all. You have to be there. I will be with you. GLORY TO THE BRAVE PEOPLE!!” For his part, González, from his exile in Spain, posted: “Today, the first day of the year 2025, we remember how the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, our Magna Carta since December 15, 1999, is the basis of our constitutional order. Article 5 establishes that sovereignty resides in the people, who exercise it directly through suffrage. Article 7 reaffirms that the Constitution is the supreme norm that governs all, without exception. Defending the principles of the rule of law is our commitment. #PopularSovereignty#RuleOfLaw.”

Chavismo is looking to armor itself with a mass mobilization of its followers in the days leading up to and following January 10. The movement has already announced a program of activities that supposedly started on January 1, with a New Year’s concert outside of Miraflores, the official residence of the president. On the day of the inauguration, which will take place at the Legislative Palace, the PSUV ruling party has promised to fill Caracas’s 10 avenues. “On July 28, the people expressed themselves and the CNE [National Electoral Council] declared, according to popular vote, Nicolás Maduro as president of the Republic. On January 10, we will see each other in the streets, we are all going to be sworn in. Let’s take to the streets, each of us in their own group,” said Cabello, who is also first vice-president of the party. “They have sought us by force and we have defeated them; they have sought us by hook or by crook and we have defeated them and we will continue to do so,” he said.

A few days ago, Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced the release of more than 400 prisoners, which added to a previous round, amounts to 1,400 individuals released from incarceration. This was widely seen as an attempt by Chavismo to attract leaders from more countries to Maduro’s “coronation,” but it remains to be seen which nations will be represented, and by which authorities. Although his inauguration seems to be a forgone conclusion, Chavismo isn’t taking any chances. At Miraflores Palace, the seat of government and occasional residence of Maduro and Cilia Flores, the First Lady, they remain on high alert.

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