As Venezuela disintegrates, Maduro consolidates power

Four days before the knock on his door, Venezuela’s oil minister tweeted an ode to President Nicolás Maduro: “Thank you, President Maduro, for giving me the honor of being by your side.”Flattery got the oil chief nowhere. Ramirez’s differences with Maduro were evident for years, said Isaias Medina, who, until July, worked for Ramirez at the mission. Venezuela’s oil sector has been widely viewed as corrupt for years. Last Sunday, in Maduro’s weekly show on state TV, Venezuela’s leader said the jailed oil officials had “stabbed me in the back. Instead, Maduro recently appointed a loyal military man with no experience in the energy sector, Manuel Quevedo, to run PDVSA. More…