{{Nicolas Maduro so far has led by imitation, seeking to fill the shoes of a president whose uncanny vigor, mischievous humor and political wiles sowed a revolution and transformed a nation.}}<\/p>\n
As Hugo Chavez did during his 14-year presidency, Maduro has stoked confrontation, and shed tears.<\/p>\n
While steering Venezuela through the trauma of Chavez’s death, Maduro has pinned his move to the top on his beloved predecessor.<\/p>\n
Yet there are serious doubts, even among die-hard Chavistas, about his ability to lead the nation.<\/p>\n
At his swearing-in Friday evening as acting president in the National Assembly chamber where less than a decade ago he was just another lawmaker, Maduro pledged his “most absolute loyalty” to Chavez.<\/p>\n
Then he launched into another fiery, lionization-of-the-masses speech punctuated by tears, Chavez-style harangues and attacks on capitalist elites and the international press.<\/p>\n
“This sash belongs to Hugo Chavez,” he said, choked up, after assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello slid the presidential band over his head. Hours earlier at Chavez’s funeral, Maduro delivered a speech similarly strident in content and tone.<\/p>\n
Maduro, 50, hasn’t stopped idolizing the outsized leader who made him Venezuela’s foreign minister, then vice president and, before going to Cuba for a final cancer surgery in December, publicly selected him as the presidential successor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Nicolas Maduro so far has led by imitation, seeking to fill the shoes of a president whose uncanny vigor, mischievous humor and political wiles sowed a revolution and transformed a nation.}} As Hugo Chavez did during his 14-year presidency, Maduro has stoked confrontation, and shed tears. While steering Venezuela through the trauma of Chavez’s death, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-6424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","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":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6424","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6424"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=6424"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=6424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}