A Leader Cries, ‘I Am Chávez,’ as U.S. Seeks Policy Clues
Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters
Vice President Nicolás Maduro on Wednesday consoled a supporter of President Hugo Chávez. More Photos »
By WILLIAM NEUMAN and GINGER THOMPSON
Published: March 6, 2013
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CARACAS, Venezuela — In the weeks leading up to his mentor’s death, Vice President Nicolás Maduro’s imitations of President Hugo Chávez became ever more apparent.
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Nicolás Maduro More Photos »
He has taken on many of Mr. Chávez’s vocal patterns and speech rhythms, and has eagerly repeated the slogan “I am Chávez” to crowds of supporters. He has mimicked the president’s favorite themes — belittling the political opposition and warning of mysterious plots to destabilize the country, even implying that the United States was behind Mr. Chávez’s cancer.
He has also adopted the president’s clothes, walking beside his coffin in an enormous procession on Wednesday wearing a windbreaker with the national colors of yellow, blue and red, as Mr. Chávez often did.
But now that Mr. Chávez is gone, the big question being raised here is whether Mr. Maduro, 50, his chosen successor, will continue to mirror the president and his unconventional governing style — or veer off in his own direction.
“He can’t just stand there and say ‘I am the Mini-Me of Chávez and now you have to follow me,’ ” said Maxwell A. Cameron of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
The puzzlement over what sort of leader Mr. Maduro will prove to be extends to Washington, where American policy makers have been feeling out Mr. Maduro for months, years even, to determine whether he might provide an opening for closer ties between the two nations.
American officials say Mr. Chávez, despite his very public denunciations of Washington, worked behind the scenes to keep trade relations between the two countries, especially in the oil sector, strong. They recalled how Mr. Chávez once picked up the phone and dialed an American diplomat to talk policy, an odd move for a leader who more than once barred American ambassadors from Caracas and regularly denounced Washington and its leaders, sometimes using barnyard epithets. “The United States needs to fix this,” Mr. Chávez said during the call, which concerned the ouster of the Honduran president in 2009. “You are the only ones who can.”
Beneath the bluster, American diplomats and analysts said, Mr. Chávez could be a pragmatist, albeit a sometimes bombastic one, and they hope Mr. Maduro will prove to be even more of one.
“I know Nicolás Maduro well,” said William D. Delahunt, a former Massachusetts member of Congress. “I know he’s a pragmatist.”
The United States reached out to Mr. Maduro last November to gauge interest in improving the relationship. He responded positively, and the two nations held three informal meetings in Washington, the last one taking place after it was clear that Mr. Chávez’s condition was severe, American officials said.
The Venezuelans wanted to once again exchange ambassadors, but Washington insisted on smaller steps to build trust, and it seemed that a tentative plan was in place, American officials said. But then the talks stalled this year and have not resumed, leaving American officials wondering about Mr. Maduro’s true intentions toward the United States.
“Maduro is just beginning to govern and create his own identity,” a State Department official said. “I don’t believe we had ever concluded one way or another whether he was a moderating influence. Our effort to reach out and create a more productive relationship was not based on a belief that he would be easier to deal with necessarily.”
Most diplomats and political analysts agree that the start of the post-Chávez landscape looked bleak; Mr. Maduro accused the United States of plotting against the country and expelled two American military attachés. But some observers saw the moves as an overtly calculated — one analyst called it “inelegant” — attempt by Mr. Maduro to unify a traumatized country bracing for Mr. Chávez’s death, appeal to the president’s supporters and propel his own chances of winning an election to succeed him.
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William Neuman reported from Caracas, and Ginger Thompson from New York. Reporting was contributed by Lizette Alvarez from Miami; María Iguarán from Cumaná, Venezuela; Clifford Krauss from Houston; and Simon Romero from Carac