Why the COVID 19 outbreak might be Maduros toughest challenge yet
Maduro has faced many challenges over the last two years and he always somehow manages to overcome them, but the Coronavirus outbreak might be his toughest opponent so far.
The first cases of COVID-19 in Venezuela were reported on the 13th of March and Maduro claimed the situation was under control and that a lockdown/quarantine would be implemented to quell the outbreak early on to protect Venezuela.
Four months later and two of Maduros right hand men have caught Coronavirus, and the situation is spiralling out of control. Diosdado Cabello and Tareck El Aissami have both tested positive for Coronavirus as well as governor of Zulia state, Omar Prieto. These high profile cases have proved that the Coronavirus outbreak in Venezuela is much worse than is being admitted by Maduro as COVID 19 has managed to infect those at the very top of the government, something which Maduro can’t hide.
Whenever previous events have occurred that have challenged Maduro, he has always been able to deflect the blame elsewhere and use propaganda to cover up events. No matter how hard he tries, that won’t work this time. He claimed that Venezuela was the best protected against Coronavirus and that he would implement measures to protect them, which everyone, including his supporters, can see hasn’t been the case.
The spread of Coronavirus in Venezuela is frightening as there’s a perfect storm of conditions that will make COVID-19 worse; a population in bad need of food aid, a collapsed health system, inconsistent supplies of water and electricity and a lack of medical supplies. All these conditions make Venezuela susceptible to a devastating outbreak of COVID-19. When you have a population that relies on going out to work to be able to put food on the table, they can’t afford to stay inside. The choice for many is whether to eat or stay inside and protect themselves from the Coronavirus, many Venezuelans choose the former.
Maduro has tried his best to divert blame for the crisis, he’s regularly blamed Colombian President Ivan Duque for purposefully sending Venezuelans infected with Coronavirus back through illegal border crossings on the Colombian-Venezuelan border. There is of course no truth to this claim, and many Venezuelan refugees are being forced to return to Venezuela due to the dire economic situation across Latin America caused by the Coronavirus outbreak, with many losing jobs and being forced to walk for weeks just to return to some sort of safety in Venezuela.
Maduros power over Venezuela is reliant on the Venezuelan Armed Forces, but they are being badly affected by the Coronavirus, with Venezuelan Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino, recently saying there were 160 cases of COVID-19 and one death from COVID in the Armed Forces. The actual numbers are likely to be higher, due to the way Venezuela conducts its Coronavirus testing. With COVID-19 circulating in the military, Maduro can’t use the excuse of the imperialists in the north to shift the blame away from himself with the current outbreak. An outbreak in the military will have been Maduros worst nightmare, soldiers already living in poor conditions are now being subjected to a pandemic that Maduro is ill equipped to deal with.
The Coronavirus outbreak in some areas is completely out of control, so much so that Maduro has been forced to admit the virus is freely spreading around Caracas and Miranda and that strict quarantine measures have had to be applied in Caracas. The outbreak in Venezuela is worst in Zulia state, the situation is bad enough that the Venezuelan Military has dispatched army medics to the region to try and help ease the pressure on the remaining medical facilities in the state, a move that went mainly under the radar.
As the outbreak worsens in Venezuela, Maduro is facing his biggest challenge, one that he can’t hide from his supporters and one that is directly affecting those at the top of his government. Maduro is set to receive more medical aid from Turkey this week and has already received aid from Russia and China but without a significant aid intervention, whatever is left of Venezuela’s health system will inevitably be overwhelmed and yet again, the ordinary Venezuelan will be the one that suffers the most.