Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Trump and the near universal consensus in the mainstream, moderate, and even much of the progressive media is that Nicholas Maduro was a brutal, drug and racket dealing, greedy, election stealing, murderous dictator. And that he drove Venezuela into the political and economic dirt during his reign. There’s certainly much truth to the mountainous knock against him.
However, there is a tiny flip side to the rap against him. Maduro may well have stolen the election in 2024. But the fact is that a significant number of Venezuelans did vote for him and not all of them with a gun pointed at their head.
Spinning Maduro as the bad guy supremo narrative on its head, I was curious to know if he did anything, I repeat anything, good for Venezuelans that would make many continue to back him.
The checklist of the few things regarded as positive he did don’t exactly rank with he made the trains run on time. There were a few tangibles that could be cited.
Health care. Maduro did push for increased spending and more foreign aid for healthcare, to secure medicines in short supply and for medical supplies. He continued to promote the notion that health care was a human and constitutional right.
Housing. He partially delivered on the government’s promise made in 2011 to build three million more housing units replacing the shacks and shanties that many Venezuelans lived in. He didn’t hit the three million mark but the more than one and a half million houses the government built was impressive.
Food Supply.
On April 3, 2016, Maduro created the Comité Local de Abastecimiento y Producción (CLAP), which were local committees that supplied and distributed food door to door. He then nationalized. the Dia a Dia food chain’s thirty-five supermarkets. He accused the company of food hoarding and overpricing thus supposedly fueling the food shortage.
Wages: In 2014 he significantly raised the minimum wage and in subsequent years backed incremental wage hikes.
Maduro was not shy about touting his achievements. He allocated several billion bolivars to get and keep the word out to his countrypersons that he was indeed working to improve their lot in all areas.
At every turn, he finger pointed the US as the culprit in creating the rampant poverty, collapse of the oil industry, and the towering housing and food shortages. All of course supposedly done to precipitate his ouster.
A shackled Maduro entering a plea in a US federal court for narcoterrorism and racketeering is the ultimate proof that the long-sought Maduro regime change finally happened.
So, good guy, bad guy or somewhere in between, a lot of Venezuelans liked what they saw in him. And it will likely stay that way depending on which Venezuelan one talks to.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts the weekly news and issues commentary radio show The Hutchinson Report Wednesdays 6 PM PST 9 PM EST at ktymgospel.net. and Facebook Livestreamed at https://www.facebook.com/earl.o.hutchinson