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Nicolás Maduro, the usurper

If elected in free elections, the usurpers of power are usually democratic leaders. But they end up tampering with constitutional or electoral tools to increase their personal power. Español.

By Rut Diamint and Laura Tedesco
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MaduroUSUR.jpg
MaduroUSUR.jpg

Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela. On March 6, 2017. Xinhua/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved.

The Venezuelan Parliament has officially declared Nicolás Maduro a usurper of the Presidency. Could we claim we were right in saying that his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, was also a usurper?

Between 2009 and 2012 we carried out a research on political leaders in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela. We interviewed 285 leaders, including former Presidents, former Vice Presidents, acting Vice Presidents, mayors, deputies, senators, political party presidents, political journalists and trade union officials.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. If you have any queries about republishing please contact us. Please check individual images for licensing details.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0