‘Proud to be a revolutionary:’ How Maduro appeals to his dwindling base | Nicolás Maduro News

Eager to mask the evils of his years in power, Maduro adopted new campaign strategies to attract voters.

He joined the video platform TikTok in 2020 and has since accumulated over 2.2 million followers. On Instagram live streams, he shows his rallies, where he has been singing, dancing and praying with his supporters.

Scrolling through videos on his phone, motorcycle taxi driver Alfred Rajoy talks excitedly about taking part in one of the recent rallies.

He told Al Jazeera he was proud to be one of the motorcyclists who approached the president.

Rajoy’s windbreaker jacket testifies to his devotion to the Chavista movement: the faces of Maduro and Chávez are printed on the front, one on each side of the zipper.

But he recognizes that Maduro’s government has faced criticism over corruption and its human rights record.

“It’s no secret that we’ve had failures here, extreme failures. There is some discontent in our communities, across the country. Some people close to Nicolás Maduro acted badly,” said Rajoy.

He also expressed some discomfort with government actions aimed at dismantling and discouraging the opposition. Dozens of opposition members were detained ahead of Sunday’s race, and restaurants and hotels hosting Gonzalez, the rival presidential candidate, were closed.

But some supporters dismiss such stories as disinformation — or, worse, fabrications by the opposition and foreign agents.

Guillermo Avila, 24, a Maduro supporter, said he believes much of the criticism he sees online is the product of manipulation by the opposition.

“They portray our government as totalitarian and dictatorial, but in reality it is a participatory and crucial government,” said Ávila. “It offers a space for everyone. We are seeing the country grow economically, where people seem happy on the streets.”

But for Gunson, Maduro’s “man of the people” narrative is not supported by his history of alleged abuses.

“Maduro calls himself a hard worker because he didn’t go to university and was a bus driver,” Gunson said. “But this is a government that arrests union leaders for protesting. They are people who got rich by exploiting the poor and claim to be socialists. The contradiction is in your middle name.”

As a result of Maduro’s reputation for suppressing dissent, many opposition voters are concerned that the president and his supporters will not respect a Gonzalez victory.

From the armchair in his living room, Bermudez watches Maduro’s campaigns on his small television set. For him, Maduro’s defeat is inconceivable. The prospect even brought tears to his eyes: “The loss of the elections would be the loss of the country, the destruction of Venezuela.”

Other Maduro supporters, however, are less fatalistic about the possibility of an end to almost 25 years of socialist rule.

“This is a democracy,” said Rajoy. “The most important thing is that people vote – and that the result is respected.”

Both men anxiously await the results on election day, which, not coincidentally, falls on the late Chávez’s birthday.