Suhelis Tehero, CONNECTAS editor and #CONNECTASHub contributor

Last Friday, March 17, unexpected rumors began to circulate on social networks, according to which the authorities carried out an almost unprecedented series of arrests. Without detailed official information, only the statement of the National Anti-Corruption Police, an institution that no one had heard of before, was available that it had applied to the prosecutor’s office with a request to open a criminal case against “a number of individuals” with positions in the judiciary, the oil industry and some mayors. There were no details, names, charges, only that it was about administrative corruption and embezzlement. Shortly thereafter, it was reported that crypto superintendent Joselit Ramirez Camacho, an official with close ties to powerful oil minister Tarek El Aissami, was among those affected.

#Urgent🔴 In the following statement, the National Anti-Corruption Police informs that a demand was sent to the deputy to bring to justice persons associated with the judiciary, the oil industry and the mayors of cities. Read here ⬇️⬇️#BastaDeImpositionImperial pic.twitter.com/qidOEORE7T

— Alfred Nazareth (@luchaalmada) March 17, 2023

That day, unofficial stories were everywhere. Added to this group is the arrest of several construction company owners who have been constructing modern buildings in Las Mercedes, an upper-middle-class commercial district in Caracas, in recent years. has been corrected.” As well as judges, mayors, deputies and former senior regional officials identified with the Chavisma, or rather, with the allies of El Aissami.

In the midst of a great deal of confusion and with no understanding of the scope of what was happening, each of the arrests was confirmed before the end of the weekend. However, the full details of the corruption schemes appeared only unofficially and little by little. El Aissami, the right-hand man of President Nicolás Maduro, has resigned from the ministry to help investigate alleged irregularities in oil bill collection.

Due to the ongoing investigations into serious corrupt practices in PDVSA; I have decided to resign from the post of oil minister in order to fully support, accompany and support this process.

— Tareck El Aissami (@TareckPSUV) March 20, 2023

So far, it only seems obvious that “chavismo without Chavez” is in the process of redistributing its shares of power. “Chavismos are organized into ‘political families’. For this reason, when the main leader of one of these falls, there is a kind of raid of all the officials who supported the victim, ”explains political scientist Anderson Sekera.

The resignation of El Aissami, one of the strongest groups within the Chavismo, marks the reorganization of the central circle of the Miraflores Palace. In this process, everything indicates that only two clans will survive: the clan of the Rodriguez brothers – Jorge and Delcy – who currently control parliament and the post of vice president, respectively, and the clan of Diosdado Cabello, who today holds only one seat in parliament. National Assembly, but with powerful influence in the ranks of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSVV).

A third of these political families, the El-Aissami family, has been expelled and its government operatives are in jail for alleged embezzlement of at least $3 billion in oil bills, some – for an unknown amount – in cryptocurrencies. . To add to the mystery, the former minister today appears to retain his position as industry vice president, a high-level but rather innocuous position.

For Secker, the Rodriguez brothers will primarily win in the reorganization of Chavista’s power leadership. He even dares to suggest that the essential areas that El Aissami controlled (such as managing cryptocurrencies) will be left in the hands of people close to Executive Vice President Delcy Rodriguez. Meanwhile, Cabello will remain the most representative figure of the original Chavismo.

And we must not forget that El Aissami was not just the chief of Chavismo. “Maduro is leaving one of his main pillars, he is leaving his political operator,” said Rafael Ramirez, who has been president of Petroleos de Venezuela and oil minister for more than a decade, now in exile in Italy.

This explains why, even in the face of a corruption scandal of enormous proportions – the alleged loss of $3 billion is equivalent to, for example, the GDP of an economy like Aruba – Maduro did not stop supporting El Aissami. “He has confirmed his status as a revolutionary militant and is ready to cooperate in the entire investigation,” the Venezuelan president said of his closest associate.

In an interview with the Venezuelan edition of El Pitazo, Ramirez believes that Maduro sacrificed his right hand because “most likely, the Americans are putting pressure” on the Venezuelan president “to reach some kind of agreement.”

The Maduro government has been in complex negotiations in Mexico for several months with the Venezuelan opposition, during which their demand for the lifting of US sanctions on Venezuela stalled the process. El-Aissami is not just some Washington official: since 2020, he has been wanted by the US authorities for alleged involvement in drug trafficking operations. In fact, the State Department is offering a $10 million reward for it.

ICE HSI announces new charges and a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of former Venezuelan Vice President Tarek El Aissami. Any information can be sent to: Tareck.tips@ice.dhs.gov. https://t.co/fg1wMBXlTN pic.twitter.com/7dwMt8uKj7

—ICE (@ICEgov) March 27, 2020

Ramirez also claims that, in addition, the Syrian-born official has amassed too much power, which made him a danger to other forces in the pro-government movement itself. “He’s one of Chavismo’s most effective and dangerous operatives,” he said in an interview.

For this reason, everything indicates that, thanks to his closeness to Maduro, he will be exempt from serious consequences, at least of a judicial nature, and under the protection of a chavista president.

Less “family”
Traditionally, when the balance of power within Chavisma is disturbed, the executive branch takes concrete action. In the government of the late President Hugo Chávez, a favorite move to end any new PSUV leadership was to remove officials (especially those who threatened to eclipse the president) and send them to embassies abroad.

But Maduro has a more radical style. Although it was more subtle with some influential historical activists such as Elias Howa, others found themselves in exile after being accused of alleged corruption by the courts.

The precedent – perhaps the only one – for the fall of El Aissami is the collapse of Ramírez, who was Venezuela’s all-powerful oil czar and one of Chávez’s few confidants. Now he faces a lawsuit from abroad in Venezuela on allegations of corruption when he ran PDVSA.

After recent events, the number of “political families” in Chavisma has been further reduced. The debugging process takes years. In 2017, there were seven power clans, including Maduro himself and his wife, Celia Flores. The other groups were led by Diosdado Cabello, Tarek El Aissami, Carmen Meléndez, Elias Jaua, Jorge Arreaza and Aristobulo Istouris. Completely marginalized and powerless, old Chavismo historical figures such as Rafael Ramírez, Jorge Giordani and Hector Navarro have been highly critical of Maduro.

It is Ramirez who understands that this whole move with El Aissami shows the weakness of the Maduro government. But everything will depend on how the protagonists play their chips in the coming weeks. Two other Chavismo strongmen – Cabello and Rodriguez – have already hinted at their moves.

“So far, 19 people have been detained and I am sure there will be more,” Rodriguez said during a speech in parliament, which he presides over. In the same place, Cabello called the fight against corruption a “tough battle” that sometimes gets in the way of feelings. “As Father Bolivar said: “Between principle and friend, I will remain with principle.” That each one is accountable to justice according to what suits him.
Meanwhile, prosecutor Tarek William Saab of the Chavismo-controlled State Ministry confirmed that the arrests are the preamble to what is to come. This means that the ending of this story is still unknown.

Text originally published by CONNECTAS.