When Nicolás Maduro became president of Venezuela in 2013, it was on the heels of the death of influential leftist leader Hugo Chavez, who was in charge of the country for more than a decade.
Chavez, the founder of Chavismo, cast himself as a “21st century socialist,” frequently disparaging capitalism and the United States, and redirecting much of the country’s vast oil wealth to massive social programs for the country’s poor. He also had a legacy of repression against politicians and private media who opposed him.
Maduro, a long-time ally of Chavez, became the leader of the Chavismo movement following his predecessor’s death.
Chavismo, a leftist ideology, prioritizes the redistribution of wealth to the country’s marginalized. It also values Venezuela’s sovereignty as something to be protected from “imperialist” powers.
Washington-based anti-poverty charity The Borgen Project says that some other tenets of Chavismo are the “nationalization of industries, and a strongly anti-neoliberal stance on economic issues.”
While Chavismo may “(work) well theoretically, as most populist ideologies do,” the reality was that many in Venezuela were unhappy with the way the country was being run under Maduro, according to the Borgen Project.
And “instead of listening to the demands of the people, Maduro decided to take the thuggish route” and attempted to quell dissent, it said.
In the years since he got into power, Maduro’s government was accused of committing a number of crimes against humanity. In a December 2025 report, the United Nations accused the country’s Bolivarian National Guard of conducting “a decade-long pattern of killings, arbitrary detentions, torture and sexual violence” targeting protesters and Maduro’s opponents.
CNN’s Mariano Castillo contributed to this reporting.