Hugo Chávez’s eyes are everywhere across parts of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. In stark black and white, his gaze is stamped onto government buildings, public housing blocks and murals. But if the late socialist president could truly see what has become of the movement he founded, he would likely be dismayed. Most Venezuelans have abandoned chavismo. His protégé Nicolás Maduro – who had led the government since 2013 – has been captured by the US, while many Venezuelans cheered his exit. What remains is a thin but loyal chavista base – and a leadership operating firmly in survival mode.

Trump needs some continuity within the chavista elite to avoid a chaotic power vacuum

At this pivotal moment, it is US president Donald Trump’s watchful gaze, not Chávez’s, that the regime’s leadership will be paying most attention to. The images of Maduro blindfolded and in handcuffs shattered the chavista elite’s lingering hope that Trump’s threats of intervention were mere hyperbole.

Amid overwhelming US pressure, Delcy Rodríguez – the country’s now interim president – has found herself steering a new phase of Venezuela’s socialist experiment: Chavismo 3.0. Chavismo, an ideology built on anti-imperialism, state-led socialism and populist nationalism, has also presided over economic collapse, corruption and democratic erosion during its 27 years in power. Its latest incarnation has softened some of its defining ideas and is shrouded in both paranoia and........

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