(Caracas) “Indestructible! “: this jingle punctuates each episode of ” Super-moustache and his steel hand “, cartoon to the glory of President Nicolas Maduro, who, like Clark Kent in “Superman”, turns into “Super-Bigote” to face the enemies of Venezuela.
Breastplate “SB” as “Super-Bigote” (“Super-mustache”) but also a reference to Simon Bolivar (emblematic hero of the emancipation of the Spanish colonies), blue cape, red construction worker’s helmet decorated with a Venezuelan flag and steel fist… here is the hero of the people for young and old.
Ten years after the death in power of the charismatic Hugo Chavez (1999-2013), Nicolas Maduro, his designated successor, uses propaganda and the cult of personality as his mentor to inflate his popularity.
According to a source familiar with the matter, Super-Bigote was commissioned by the Venezuelan presidency to cartoonists in 2021 with the idea of making him a heroic character “at war against imperialism” and the country’s problems.
In the cartoon, the “villain” is a masked blond at the White House. Super-Bigote fights a mechanical mole depriving the country of electricity, a monster opposing the delivery of vaccines, a Frankenstein created by the CIA or infiltrated aliens… Under the dumbfounded gaze of easily identifiable opponents.
Super-Bigote is everywhere: caps, T-shirts, painted on the walls of Caracas, Valencia or other cities, dolls, and… during the carnival parade where children and adults dress up in costumes bearing his likeness.
“It’s not the cult of personality, it’s love of country! It’s not the person but what they represent. He is a leader who fights with us,” said Balbina Perez, 65, with force, wearing a “Super-Bigote” T-shirt.
The president himself speaks regularly about Super-Bigote on television, in a supposedly humorous way but for Elias Pino Iturrieta, a retired university historian, specialist in the cult of personality. “It’s not improvised”, it “even had to be well thought out”.
“Diversion”
Author of ” The divine Bolivar “, Elias Pino recalls that “the super doll” was dubbed by “the military high command and the executives of the Socialist Party” with “its presentation during the most important military parade in July 2021” on the very martial “paseo de Proceres” , the Venezuelan Champs-Élysées.
“Chavez was very popular. Maduro is less so. So we invented this character. You have to find something that makes you believe that you are not living in hell but in purgatory,” says Pino.
Political analyst Luis Vicente Leon points out that “Maduro is looking for something different. Chavez would never show up with a cape like the Chapulin Colorado (Mexican series parody of superheroes).
Although it has been better since 2022, Venezuela has been going through a serious economic crisis since 2013. GDP contracted by 80%. Hyperinflation has reduced purchasing power to a trickle. Some 7 of the 30 million inhabitants have left the country.
“This theater” of Super-Bigote is a “diversion” to “prevent the increase in discontent and protests. It’s a circus thing. Like a trapeze artist who catches your eye. It’s brilliant in terms of marketing but it’s lamentable in terms of the contempt of the population,” attacks Mr. Pino.
With Super-Bigote “used like a saint in Catholic imagery”, we “appeal to the extraordinary powers of a person: Simon Bolivar. It is a substitute for Bolivar,” Mr. Pino thinks.
The recourse to the hero of the revolution against the Spanish occupier “does not date from Chavez” who “used and abused” him, associating his image with that of the “Liberator”.
“The cult of personality is old, it was born with the Republic with the excessive apology of Bolivar […] superman who takes charge of the destinies of the fatherland”.
Most Venezuelan leaders, especially José Antonio Paez (1830-35, 1860-63), Antonio Guzman Blanco (1870-77, 1870-84), Eleazar Lopez Contreras (1935-1941) or Marcos Pérez Jimenez (1952-58 ), used the figure of Bolivar for personal gain.
In this Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Bolivar is all over the place: central squares, major roads and works are almost all called Simon Bolivar.
And it continues. The 40,000-seat stadium inaugurated in February in Caracas was baptized “Simon Bolivar because Bolivar was a baseball player who scored a lot of points”, quips Mr. Pino.
For Daniel Varnagy, doctor in political science, “in Venezuela, politics is totally personalized. Chavez is the reference and he has an almost magical or religious power… At the same time, we (the power) hold a different discourse and abandon some “Chavista” symbols.
Same observation for Mr. Pino: “Chavez cannot disappear but the central place is occupied by Maduro. Always less Chavez and always more Maduro… and Super-Bigote”