Nicolás Maduro believed that his predecessor and political father, the late Hugo Chávez, appeared before him in the form of a small bird and a butterfly. He also though that celebrating Christmas two months early – by presidential decree – would help “lift the spirits of Venezuelans.”
He confused “gremlin” with “grinch,” invented words in Spanish, and often made one linguistic slip after another. His decisions and statements were seen as so eccentric that many Venezuelans and Latin Americans have a name for them: “maduradas.”
He had, however, proven for years that underestimating him can be a mistake for his critics.
But all that changed in the early hours of…
