Maduro, Nicolás (1962-…), became president of Venezuela in 2013. Maduro, who had been vice president, assumed the top position after the death of President Hugo Chávez. Maduro is the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
Nicolás Maduro Moros was born on Nov. 23, 1962, in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital city. He attended high school in a working-class neighborhood of Caracas but never graduated. Maduro worked for years as a city bus driver, and he became a trade union leader in the mid-1980’s. In the early 1990’s, Maduro joined the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200, a socialist political group founded by Hugo Chávez. The group formed a political party called the Fifth Republic Movement, which later merged with other parties to form the PSUV.
In 1998, Chávez was elected president of Venezuela. The same year, Maduro, a close ally of Chávez, was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Venezuela’s legislature. In 1999, Maduro was elected to a National Constituent Assembly. Under Chávez’s direction, this assembly rewrote Venezuela’s Constitution. In 2000, Maduro was elected to the National Assembly, a unicameral (one-house) legislature created by the new constitution. From 2006 to 2013, he served as minister of foreign affairs. Chávez was reelected as president in 2012, and Maduro became vice president. After Chávez died in March 2013, Maduro became acting president. In April, Maduro was formally elected president amid claims of fraud.
As president, Maduro used his power to suppress (put down) political opposition, often violently. He also worked to increase his executive authority and to control or weaken other branches of government. During Maduro’s presidency, Venezuela experienced an economic crisis. This crisis was due partly to a decline in the price of oil, a Venezuelan export. Maduro accused his opponents in Venezuela, and foreign governments, of economic sabotage. Others blamed the poor economy on mismanagement and corruption. Severe economic hardship and political conflict fueled the emigration of millions of Venezuelans.
Maduro was reelected in 2018, again amid claims of fraud. In 2019, opposition legislators established a parallel “interim government” with Juan Guaidó, the National Assembly president, as its leader. But this parallel government failed to oust Maduro and was dissolved by early 2023.
In 2024, Venezuela’s electoral authority declared Maduro the winner of that year’s presidential election. The political opposition also claimed victory and presented evidence that it had won. The election was marked by reports of irregularities and by suppression of Maduro’s opponents. Protests broke out in Venezuela after the vote. In addition, some foreign governments and organizations doubted or rejected Maduro’s victory.
