Here’s a look at the life of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Personal:
Birth date: November 23, 1962
Birth place: Caracas, Venezuela
Birth name: Nicolás Maduro Moros
Parents: Names unknown publicly
Marriage: Cilia Flores
Children: Nicolás Jr.
Other Facts:
Worked as a bus driver for Caracas Metro and belonged to the transit union.
Maduro campaigned for Hugo Chavez’s release from prison for the 1992 attempted coup to overthrow President Carlos Andres Perez.
After Chavez’s release, Maduro helped him found the political party Fifth Republic Movement.
Timeline:
1983 – Bodyguard for presidential hopeful Jose Vicente Rangel.
1992 – Is introduced to Hugo Chavez.
1999 – Maduro is elected to the National Constituent Assembly, the body convened to draft a new constitution.
2000 – Is elected to the National Assembly, the country’s legislative branch of government
2005-2006 – Serves as Speaker of the National Assembly.
2006-2013 – Serves as Foreign Minister.
October 12, 2012 – Is selected by President Chavez to serve as his vice president.
December 9, 2012 – Facing his fourth surgery for cancer, Chavez endorses Maduro to succeed him.
March 8, 2013 – Is sworn in as interim president following the death of Chavez three days earlier.
April 14, 2013 – Wins the presidential election by fewer than two percentage points over Henrique Capriles Radonski.
April 19, 2013 – Maduro is sworn in a day after the National Electoral Council announces plans to complete an audit of votes cast in the April 14 election “to preserve a climate of harmony between Venezuelans.”
September 30, 2013 – Maduro announces on state-run VTV that he is expelling three US diplomats. He claims they were involved in a widespread power outage earlier in the month. “Get out of Venezuela,” he says, listing several names. “Yankee go home. Enough abuses already.”
February 12, 2014 – Student protests in Venezuela that started earlier in the month attract global attention when three people are killed. Major social and economic problems have fueled the protests, with some blaming Venezuela’s government for those problems.
February 20, 2014 – Venezuela revokes press credentials for CNN journalists in the country and denies them for other CNN journalists entering the country, following Maduro’s announcement that he would expel CNN if it did not “rectify” its coverage of anti-government protests, calling it war propaganda.
February 21, 2014 – Maduro calls for US President Barack Obama to “accept the challenge” of holding direct talks with Venezuela.
February 22, 2014 – Venezuela re-issues press credentials for CNN journalists in the country.
January 15, 2016 – Following the release of years of economic data, Maduro declares a state of “economic emergency.”
May 13, 2016 – Maduro declares a “constitutional state of emergency,” which expands on the “economic emergency” he declared in January.
October 30, 2016 – Maduro sits down to engage in talks with political opponents for the first time in two years, in order to find a compromise among Venezuelan political parties.
July 31, 2017 – US Treasury Department sanctions freeze Maduro’s assets subject to US jurisdiction and bar US citizens from dealing with him. This comes a day after elections are held for a new lawmaking body in Venezuela. The department says the National Constituent Assembly “aspires illegitimately to usurp the constitutional role of the democratically elected National Assembly, rewrite the constitution, and impose an authoritarian regime on the people of Venezuela.”