Nicolás Maduro, before his supporters: “They will never be able to take us off the path of the revolution”

With a new broadcast on the national radio and television network, Nicolás Maduro reappeared this Monday in a rally with his followers of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela near the Miraflores Palace, in the center of Caracas, to affirm to adversaries and interested parties: “They will never be able to take us, under any circumstances, off the path of the revolution.”

Completely immersed in the narrative of his movement—according to which Chavismo is completely absolved of any responsibility for the country’s socioeconomic collapse—and apparently without the slightest intention of leaving power, regardless of Washington’s threats, Maduro reappeared energetic, relaxed and smiling, after an absence of a few days in which speculation arose about his political destiny.

Doubts multiplied especially after the president of the United States, Donald Trump, acknowledged in a conversation with the press that he had a telephone conversation with him and the imposition of an ultimatum from Washington was discussed so many times.

With this act, Caracas responds to all the journalistic conjectures that speculated about an agreed exit. “We have lived through 22 weeks of psychological terrorism, which has tested us,” said Maduro. “The proof of love for the country” The Bolivarian leader swore in at this event held on Urdaneta Avenue, the Comprehensive Base Bolivarian Community Commands, a new organizational variant with which the high Government tries to deploy its militancy to organize block by block throughout the country, assuming political and territorial control of the national geography with national defense as the supreme objective. These “cellular” efforts, in which the population is organized into territorial circles, have also been made in the military world.

Maduro took advantage of the occasion to announce the creation of a new political bureau, a plenipotentiary body made up of 12 leaders, who will “accompany him to lead all social and political forces.” “We are more than a party: we are a force, and we have achieved unity among all Venezuelans in the face of these imperial threats,” he launched.

This new instance is made up of the members of the official nomenclature: Diosdado Cabello, Jorge Rodríguez, Delcy Rodríguez and Cilia Flores among the most important. All were presented and sworn in by Maduro himself in this event.

Although it is evident that political fervor is not abundant, Chavismo, already greatly reduced as a political current, has been structured in a disciplined manner around Maduro, offering new proof of unity and organization at a particularly delicate political moment.

Even more: following a strategic maxim of Hugo Chávez—deepening the revolution to guarantee its stability after each siege by its enemies—the Chavistas seem willing to use the circumstance unleashed after last year’s presidential elections to radicalize the foundations of the Bolivarian revolution whenever possible.

So far this year, amidst the controversies over the legitimacy of his election and the increase in tensions with the United States, Maduro has raised the possibility of accelerating constitutional reforms to strengthen “popular power” as an executive body and project manager.

He has also promised to develop “a constituent assembly” to co-opt the entire union movement and has offered to “perfect Bolivarian democracy,” with new mechanisms of representation and participation; “direct democracy, true democracy,” according to Maduro, far from “the model of bourgeois democracy.”