This man holds the Venezuelan regime together. Here's why Maduro doesn't trust him

As Nicolas Maduro intensifies the crackdown against protesters and dissidents in what is seen as the biggest challenge to his rule since he came to power, the embattled Venezuelan strongman has turned to Cuban intelligence agents to keep an eye on members of the military who might privately be unsure about his claim that he won last week’s presidential election.

And few are being watched as closely as Maduro’s own defense minister, Vladimir Padrino López, amid Maduro’s growing distrust in the country’s armed forces.

“They have him surrounded; he is being watched on all sides,” said Maduro’s former intelligence chief, Manuel Christopher Figuera, who worked closely with Padrino López before going into exile. Inside the top echelons of the regime “Padrino is the one in a position to act, holding the ultimate authority over the nation’s monopoly on arms, but also he is the only one who could independently negotiate a way out — if he doesn’t get killed first.”

Military sources inside and outside Venezuela have told the Miami Herald that Padrino López and other high-ranking military officials are being closely watched amid a brutal wave of repression that in just one week has led to the arrest of at least 2,000 demonstrators and opposition figures, the deaths of 20 people and injuries of dozens of others, as Maduro attempts to crush protests held after the July 28th election.

Local news outlets have also reported the arrival in Venezuela of at least four passenger flights from Cuba, while activists have denounced that a number of the agents taking part in repressing oppositions figures and protesters have Cuban accents.

Mixed signals

Padrino López gave a series of mixed signals in the days prior to and immediately after the election. He first said the Venezuelan armed forces would guarantee that the people’s decision in the election would be respected, and that whoever lost the would have to go home. Just hours before the vote, he also said the vote would launch the country into a new era.

But then, as the Venezuelan opposition began to prove that the regime’s claim that Maduro had won was fraudulent, the defense minister backtracked and said that Maduro was the victim of a coup attempt launched by right-wing extremists under the instructions of the United States.

Washington and a growing number of nations believe that opposition candidate Edmundo González won the election, getting close to 70% of the vote. The opposition’s claim is backed by digitized copies of the official vote tallies gathered during election day. The international community has repeatedly asked Maduro to provide the official tallies backing the regime’s announcement that he had won, but the Venezuelan strongman has failed to do so.

Exit polls conducted during the election by respected independent firms also showed that Gonzalez was beating Maduro by margin larger than 2 to 1.

High-ranking members of the Venezuelan armed forces know who really won the presidential election, because army soldiers are tasked with handling the security and the logistics during the elections and were present during the vote counting process in each of the 15,700 polling stations. Padrino Lopez was most likely the first to know how the vote was going during election day.

High stakes for the region

The situation in Venezuela is being watched closely by Washington and a number of Latin American countries, amid concerns that a Maduro victory could trigger another exodus of Venezuelans in the region. More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have already left their country, causing economic hardship and social problems in nations where they’ve sought refuge.

A poll released earlier this year in Caracas showed that 40% of the country’s population would consider leaving if Maduro stayed in power after the election. Opposition leaders believe this could translate to an additional five million Venezuelans seeking refuge in other countries.

In the U.S., the presence of 800,000 Venezuelan immigrants, of whom a large number have entered without documents, has become a topic of dispute during this year’s presidential campaign. Asked in a media event, former president Donald Trump described the presence of Venezuelan migrants in the U.S. as a major national security problem.

“We are enemies with Venezuela,” Trump said in a video posted on Monday by the Kamala Harris campaign. “They have released tremendous numbers of criminals into our country. If you look at Caracas, which is known for being a very dangerous city, and now is one of the safest, it is safer now than most of our cities.”

Checkered past

Christopher Figuera, a former major general who headed the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service before taking part in the failed April 30, 2019, uprising, said this would not be the first time the defense minister finds himself in a position where he would have to choose between his loyalty to the regime and his loyalty to his country’s constitution and the Venezuelan people.

In the 2019 rebellion, the defense minister had the opportunity to side with the Venezuelan Congress, which had declared that Maduro had cheated in the 2018 election, and was illegally holding the presidency, but the risk-averse Padrino López in the end chose not to act. This time may be the same, Christopher Figuera said.

“It is as he was waiting for certain things to transpire in order to step forward and recognize the regime’s defeat. Whatever it was, it didn’t happen, or something forced him to deviate from the path,” the former intelligence chief said.

The regime has so far abstained from using the army in the crackdown, in what is seen as a sign that the average Venezuelan soldier cannot be trusted for the task.

The crackdown

A retired Venezuelan Army major, who asked not to be named because he is being sought by the regime, said most of the violence seen in past days in Venezuela came from armed paramilitary groups that are being paid well to generate fear among their countrymen.

“They are willing to go out because they are being offered $1,000 or $2,000 to go out and participate in the repression, but they are not limiting themselves to trying to intimidate people gathered to protest, they go and fire their weapons, at times with the intent to kill,” the major said.

Regime officials are also hunting down opposition leaders and election volunteers who helped document the voting during election day, paperwork that shows that Maduro lost the vote.

Venezuelan activist José Colina, an exiled former lieutenant in the Venezuelan National Guard, said from Miami that his network of military sources in the South American country has been able to confirm that some of the agents conducting the arrests and search operations were Cubans.

“There are Cuban personnel accompanying agents from the National Guard and the national police,” Colina, president of the organization of Venezuelans Persecuted in Exile, said. Cubans “are the ones directing the teams that are knocking on the doors in the middle of the night, searching for the people that served as observers for the opposition during the election or those that were seen protesting the following days.”

In a ceremony held on Saturday, Maduro said that at least 2,000 people charged with participating in rallies against him have been arrested since the protests began. Calling them criminals, the strongman said they will be sent to the Tocorón and Tocuyito, two of the worst prisons in the country.

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