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Now that President Donald Trump has captured the leader of Venezuela’s revolutionary socialist government, the immediate question is whether an increasingly brutal regime that has endured for more than a quarter of a century can survive.
In the confused aftermath of the US military operation early on Saturday during which Nicolás Maduro and his wife were snatched, several Venezuelan government figures made public statements of defiance.
But it was not clear who would ultimately take command of a country whose economy is in ruins and around a quarter of whose population has fled abroad.
Equally unclear is the end game of Trump, who has repeatedly attacked Maduro as a “narco-terrorist” and an illegitimate leader, but has not laid out a clear vision for what he wants in Venezuela.
The South American nation, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, has broken with the west and drifted into the orbit of China, Russia and Iran this century.
This presents a clear challenge to Trump’s revived Monroe Doctrine that America should control its own “backyard”. Now that he has waded in with a dramatic show of military force, the US president will have responsibility for what comes next.
Among possible successors to Maduro, Venezuela’s vice-president Delcy Rodríguez, theoretically the next in line, phoned into a TV broadcast from an unknown location amid rumours that she was out of the country.
Defence minister Vladimir Padrino López and interior minister Diosdado Cabello, who command the regime’s hard power, appeared in separate video broadcasts referring to US attacks and vowing defiance.
The streets of central Caracas were largely deserted on Saturday morning, with public transport down and a few Venezuelans walking to buy supplies. There was no immediate sign of the big deployment of security forces promised in a government statement after the US attacks, nor were there any street protests by the opposition.
Venezuelans have learned to their cost over the past two decades that the “Chavista” regime is not afraid to use lethal force to put down protests if necessary. After several failed uprisings in the past, they are unlikely to risk their lives this time unless there are clear signs that the military and police will join rather than attack them.
The survivors of Maduro’s regime also face a challenge. None of the leading government figures in Caracas has control over the key levers of power that he enjoyed.
Rodríguez has acted as Venezuela’s economic tsar, negotiating oil contracts and trying to win investment, but has little sway over the powerful armed forces or the regime’s feared security apparatus. Her brother Jorge, whose whereabouts are also unclear, has been Maduro’s top political fixer and international negotiator but does not control hard power either.
Padrino Lopez, by contrast, has long been the top military figure but has limited political influence while Cabello, a much-feared hardliner, controls the nationwide militias set up by Hugo Chávez, founder of Venezuela’s “Bolivarian revolution”, to defend the regime.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado, who has repeatedly forecast the end of Maduro’s rule, left her hiding place inside Venezuela to travel abroad last month and collect the Nobel Peace Prize. She is still believed to be outside the country and has not made any immediate public comment.
Edmundo González, who most international observers believe was the true victor of the presidential election last year stolen by Maduro, has spent the past months in Madrid in exile.
During his first administration, Trump recognised then-opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president, signing up more than 60 countries to do the same. Despite the international backing, Guaidó’s shadow government never won actual power, allowing Maduro to hold on. Guaidó eventually fled into exile.
This time around, Trump has been much more cautious towards the Venezuelan opposition. He has not met Machado and has focused on removing Maduro rather than on saying who he wants to see leading the country.
Trump’s aims appear to be multiple: as a major source of migration, a key ally of Russia and China and a significant transit country for drugs, Venezuela is home to several of his preoccupations. Will he prove more successful in resolving them this time around?
About eight million Venezuelans in exile, most in other Latin American countries, are today celebrating the departure of the man whose misgovernment forced them to leave the country. But they are also asking whether what comes next will be the return to democracy they long for — or a fresh wave of repression from a regime that has already endured far longer than anyone expected.
Having used force to depose and extract Maduro, Trump now owns the consequences. The responsibility for a peaceful transition in Venezuela and a restoration of democracy is squarely his.
michael.stott@ft.com
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