Nicolás Maduro, speaking to his supporters: ‘They will never be able to take us off the path of the revolution’

With a new national radio and television broadcast, Nicolás Maduro re-emerged this Monday at a rally with his supporters from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela near Miraflores Palace in downtown Caracas, to declare that his adversaries “will never be able to take us off the path of the revolution, under any circumstances.”

Fully immersed in the narrative of his movement—according to which Chavismo is fully acquitted of any responsibility for the country’s social and economic collapse—and apparently, with no intention of relinquishing power, regardless of Washington’s threats, Maduro appeared energetic, relaxed, and smiling, after an absence of a few days during which rumors had swirled about his political fate.

The questions had multiplied, especially after U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged to the media that he has had a telephone conversation with Maduro, and there was much talk about the imposition of an ultimatum by Washington.

The Monday event was Caracas’ response to all the media conjectures about a negotiated exit. “We have lived through 22 weeks of psychological terrorism, which have tested us,” said Maduro. “The test of love for the homeland.” At the event, held on Urdaneta Avenue, the Venezuelan leader swore in the Comprehensive Bolivarian Community Base Commands, with which the government is attempting to deploy its militants to organize block by block throughout the country, assuming political and territorial control with national defense as the supreme objective. These “cellular” efforts, in which the population is organized into territorial circles, have also been implemented within the military.

Maduro seized the opportunity to announce the creation of a new political bureau, a plenipotentiary body composed of 12 leaders, which will “accompany him in leading all social and political forces.” “We are more than a party: we are a force, and we have achieved unity among all Venezuelans in the face of these imperial threats,” he declared.

This new body is composed of members of the ruling party’s leadership: Diosdado Cabello, Jorge Rodríguez, Delcy Rodríguez, and Cilia Flores are among the most prominent. All were presented and sworn in by Maduro himself at this event.

Although political fervor is clearly lacking, Chavismo, already greatly diminished as a political movement, has structured itself in a disciplined manner around Maduro, offering a new demonstration of unity and organization at a particularly delicate political moment.

Even more: adhering to a strategic maxim of the late leader Hugo Chávez — to deepen the revolution to guarantee its stability after each siege by its enemies —, the Chavistas seem willing to use the circumstances unleashed after last year’s presidential elections to radicalize the foundations of the Bolivarian revolution whenever possible.

So far this year, amid controversies over the legitimacy of his re-election and increased tensions with the United States, Maduro has hinted at the possibility of accelerating constitutional reforms to strengthen “popular power” as an executive and project management body.

He has also promised to develop “a constituent assembly” to co-opt the entire trade union movement and has offered to “perfect Bolivarian democracy”, with new mechanisms of representation and participation; “direct democracy, the true democracy”, according to Maduro, far removed “from the model of bourgeois democracy.”

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