Maduro shores up top brass to avert coup in Venezuel

President Maduro has in a single ceremony promoted 139 officers to the rank of general or admiral — an attempt, critics said, to shore up military support for his struggling government. The notoriously top-heavy armed forces now has more than 2,000 men and women serving at the rank of brigadier-general or above; more than all the armies in Nato combined. “The promotions are an incentive for loyalty,” said Rocío San Miguel, a defence specialist based in Caracas. The embattled president, a former bus driver who unlike his predecessor and mentor Hugo Chávez never served in the armed forces, has become increasingly dependent on the military to run his government and protect his power.