Why Venezuela’s Maduro Is Making a Play for Legitimacy Now
As his country struggles under U.S. sanctions, the strongman signals he’s willing to compromise. Will he really change his ways? Let’s see.
Maduro speaks with Bloomberg’s Erik Schatzker in Caracas.
Photographer: Gabriela Oráa/Bloomberg
It’s 11 a.m. on a Saturday in early June, and I’m in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, on the 10th floor of the finance ministry. One side of the building overlooking the dilapidated downtown has enormous portraits of Simón Bolívar, South America’s great liberator; Hugo Chávez, the socialist revolutionary who won the presidency in 1998; and Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, who rules Venezuela today. The presentation I’ve been summoned to see starts with a PowerPoint slide in Spanish. It reads: “The Attack on Venezuela.” I’ve been in the country less than 24 hours. Let the propaganda begin, I think.