{"id":12900,"date":"2014-03-04T03:39:57","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T03:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/why-maduro-is-not-chavez-venezuela-is-not-ukraine\/"},"modified":"2014-03-04T03:38:31","modified_gmt":"2014-03-04T03:38:31","slug":"why-maduro-is-not-chavez-venezuela-is-not-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/why-maduro-is-not-chavez-venezuela-is-not-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Maduro is not Ch\u00e1vez & Venezuela is not Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{The president of Venezuela, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, was young once too. He played guitar and worked as a roadie for a rock band, Enigma, leaving his hair long in the back, mullet-style.}}<\/p>\n

The skinny, rebellious young man looked not too different from the student protesters and angry teens now challenging his government in the streets. <\/p>\n

For these youths, who grew up during the 14-year rule of his predecessor, Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, it is Maduro who has become the face of a rotten establishment.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaduro, resign now!\u201d they roar.<\/p>\n

After more than two weeks of daily protests that have left at least 14 dead and 150 injured, Maduro is stumbling toward Wednesday\u2019s anniversary of \u00adCh\u00e1vez\u2019s death, saddled by doubts about his ability to keep his mentor\u2019s \u201cBolivarian\u201d revolution running. <\/p>\n

The problems Ch\u00e1vez passed along when he died last year, including rampant crime and a cratering economy, have gotten worse.<\/p>\n

But the man who calls himself \u201ca son of Ch\u00e1vez\u201d has also inherited a silver spoon of immense, centralized state power. Maduro and the United Socialist Party founded by Ch\u00e1vez control 20 of Venezuela\u2019s 23 state governments, as well as the Supreme Court, parliament and, the most important, the military and the national oil company.<\/p>\n

In the poor and working-class barrios where Ch\u00e1vez provided new schools, medical clinics and subsidized housing, loyalty to the government remains strong.<\/p>\n

Venezuela is not Ukraine, analysts say, where a weak president wobbled, then fled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no reason to believe Maduro is in an unstable situation,\u201d said Gregory Weeks, a Latin America scholar at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe military has declared itself behind him and has not wavered in that regard.
\nUnless they were called in for intense repressive measures, it is hard to imagine any scenario where military leaders would revolt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{The president of Venezuela, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, was young once too. He played guitar and worked as a roadie for a rock band, Enigma, leaving his hair long in the back, mullet-style.}} The skinny, rebellious young man looked not too different from the student protesters and angry teens now challenging his government in the streets. For […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000050702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-12900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000050702,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12900.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12900.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12900.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12900.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12900.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12900.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000050702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12900"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=12900"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=12900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}