Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro gestures during his speech on December 3.
Pedro Rances Mattey/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Pedro Rances Mattey/AFP via Getty Images
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro gestures during his speech on December 3.
Pedro Rances Mattey/AFP via Getty Images
BARINAS, Venezuela — Evangelical pastor Wenceslao Méndez operates on a shoestring budget.
To attract people to his sermons, he rides his bike around this western Venezuelan town, speaking through a handlebar-mounted public address system. He speaks from a one-room cabin still under construction.
But over the past year, Méndez’s church has received a boost from the Venezuelan government. She provided him with free bags of cement, concrete blocks and cans of yellow paint to beautify the building. Also on the way, 60 plastic chairs to welcome the faithful.
“Before, we didn’t even have a roof,” says Méndez, pointing to his freshly painted altar.
The donations are part of an aggressive campaign by Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, to win support from evangelical Christians ahead of a crucial presidential election later this year, in which he will seek another term. six years old.
Venezuelan evangelical pastor Wenceslao Méndez attracts people to his sermons from his bicycle using a loudspeaker system.
John Otis for NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
John Otis for NPR
Venezuelan evangelical pastor Wenceslao Méndez attracts people to his sermons from his bicycle using a loudspeaker system.
John Otis for NPR
A program called “My Well Equipped Church” is renovating thousands of evangelical churches across the country. The Maduro government also provides small cash allowances to 13,000 pastors and committed to building a evangelical university.
Maduro’s son, also named Nicolás, was named vice president of religious affairs for the ruling Socialist Party and meets regularly with evangelical pastors. The regime allowed evangelical political parties, such as El Cambio (“Change”), to operate while repressing opposition parties. In January 2023, Maduro held a televised summit with evangelical pastors, during which he declared: “I am also a pastor, the great pastor of Venezuela.”
This evangelical awarenesswhich represent 13% of the population, according to a 2020 surveymay seem strange given the long-standing connection between faith and conservative politicians and social causes. In neighboring Brazil, for example, evangelicals helped elect right-wing populists. Jair Bolsonaro in that country’s 2018 presidential election and was a key part of his coalition when he narrowly lost his 2022 re-election bid.
In contrast, left-wing Maduro claims to be leading a socialist revolution, a revolution that has moved closer to communist Cuba. Moreover, Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, the late President Hugo Chávez, often clashed with religious leaders — although he directed most of his fury at Catholic clerics who criticized his government’s efforts to monopolize more power.
In a 2007 speechFor example, Chávez called the country’s Catholic bishops “devils” and “vagabonds.”
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro delivers his annual speech to the National Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela, January 15. Behind it is an image of the late President Hugo Chávez.
Ariana Cubillos/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Ariana Cubillos/AP
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro delivers his annual speech to the National Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela, January 15. Behind it is an image of the late President Hugo Chávez.
Ariana Cubillos/AP
Chávez died of cancer in 2013. Since then, Maduro has rolled back democratic freedoms in Venezuela and dragged the country into the worst economic crisis in its history. All this did deeply unpopular at a time when Maduro is pledging to hold a free and fair presidential election later this year.
If this were to happen, it could convince the US government to permanently lift sanctions against its government, which have crippled the country’s vital oil industry. The United States temporarily lifted most of these sanctions in October, but the Biden administration has threatened to reimpose them if Maduro fails to hold clean elections.
Analysts say that during a face-to-face against the opposition leader Maria Corina Machadowho fights government efforts to keep her out In the presidential vote, Maduro would be the underdog – which is why he is speaking to evangelicals.
After having cut ties with many Catholics, who make up 71% of the populationAccording to the 2020 survey, “the government needs some kind of religious credibility,” said Iraní Acosta, director of the Fe y Alegría (Faith and Joy) radio station in western Venezuela, affiliated with the ‘Catholic Church. “This is a country of believers.”
Javier Corrales, a professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts who has studied ties between evangelicals and politicians in Latin America, points out that despite the Maduro government’s left-wing rhetoric Revolutionary rhetoric, he appeals to many evangelicals because he is actually quite conservative on social issues.
Venezuela has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the region, while same-sex marriage remains illegal, although increasingly country everywhere in Latin America legalize these unions. Citing family values, the Maduro government raided a gay men’s club in July, launched a war against illegal drug use and even banned Electronic cigarettes. Until this year, homosexuals were banned in Venezuela. armed forces.
Members of several evangelical churches participate in a demonstration called by different religious groups “in defense of the traditional family” and against same-sex marriage in Caracas on July 13, 2023.
Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images
Members of several evangelical churches participate in a demonstration called by different religious groups “in defense of the traditional family” and against same-sex marriage in Caracas on July 13, 2023.
Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images
“It’s an old-fashioned, militaristic and homophobic government,” Corrales says.
Additionally, evangelicals can be a reliable voting bloc as pastors wield enormous influence in their communities.
“As long as (politicians) feed them this type of social conservatism…these pastors will get you votes,” Corrales says. “They’re super organized and it’s very vertical. So the candidates don’t need to talk to a lot of people. They just need to get the pastors involved.”
During Maduro’s evangelical summit, pastors were squarely in the president’s camp. Enrique Villalba, who heads one of Venezuela’s largest evangelical churches, told Maduro: “We pray for you and your family.”
Also Méndez, the pastor of the half-built church in Barinas.
He admits that Venezuela has gone through extremely difficult times under Maduro, but he believes most of his followers will vote for him. The fact that Maduro is still in power proves, he says, that “God is on his side.”
