One year after the corruption scandal in Venezuela which led to his resignation, the powerful former minister of Petroleum Tareck El Aissami is missing from public life. Where is? Is it investigated? These are unanswered questions from the hermetic ruling Chavismo.
It is only clear that his days as a trusted man of President Nicolás Maduro, of whom he was vice president (2017-2018), and his predecessor Hugo Chávez are behind him.
El Aissami, 49 years old and sanctioned by the United States, resigned on March 20, 2023 after the announcement of judicial investigations into a plot linked to the sale of crude oil through crypto assets, a bet with which the government sought to avoid financial sanctions. of Washington against Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves in the world: 297,000 million barrels.
61 officials, politicians and businessmen were arrested after an embezzlement of more than $15 billion, according to press reports.
“Due to the investigations that have been initiated into serious acts of corruption in PDVSA [Petróleos de Venezuela]”I have made the decision to present my resignation,” he then wrote on the social network “support” to that process.
“Let’s go with everything, no matter who falls!”Maduro promised after accepting his resignation.
However, El Aissami’s name went into a locked drawer. The former minister never appeared in public again and the resignation is his last publication on social networks.
His disappearance fueled conspiracy theories: some say that he was detained in a mansion in a military fort in Caracas, others that he has serious health problems. The government doesn’t even name him.
“The issue of El Aissami has followed the same pattern of secrecy, from an informational and communication point of view, as that of other situations such as the death of President Chávez (in 2013) or cases of internal crisis in the official coalition, so only “There are speculations.”political scientist John Magdaleno tells AFP.
Justice or purge?
The Public Ministry reported last year that 22 of the 61 arrested were put on trial. The courts have not yet set a date for hearings.
“We are in the intermediate phase waiting to hold the preliminary hearing of the different plots,” Attorney General Tarek William Saab told AFP, who avoided referring in particular to El Aissami.
Close collaborators of the former minister are among those detained, including Joselit Ramírez, an official in charge of state operations with crypto assets.
“What happened to the corruption accusations?”asks the doctor in Political Science and university professor Daniel Varnagy. “Nothing has happened (…), because the objective was for one person not to be at the center of power.”
There was, Varnagy considers, a “purification” in Chavismo: “When someone takes too much power and could modify or change the decision-making of the main political actors (…), the purge comes.”
Analysts consider that his departure may respond to a struggle between powerful factions.
“Oh my God! Since when is corruption and embezzlement a political fact? Where is the ideology there? Is stealing an ideology?” Prosecutor Saab said at the time of the arrests.
Under Scrutiny
Numerous judicial investigations are underway regarding Venezuela’s oil industry. Rafael Ramírez, very close to Chávez, was accused of corruption during his administration as Minister of Petroleum (2002-2014) and president of PDVSA (2004-2014); and he is a fugitive in Italy.
Two other holders of the portfolio, Eulogio del Pino and Nelson Martínez, were arrested. Martínez died in custody.
El Aissami, a lawyer of Syrian-Lebanese origin, took over the Oil Ministry in April 2020 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic for a “restructuring”, according to his appointment. He unsuccessfully promised to raise the hit production to one million barrels per day (bd), which fell below 400,000, a minimum in decades.
It resumed operations with foreign oil companies such as Chevron, in the midst of a process of easing US sanctions. After his departure, a military man, Pedro Tellechea, who had been president of PDVSA since January 2023, succeeded him.
Production today exceeds 800,000 bpd, still far from the three million in 2008. Experts link the collapse to lack of investment and multimillion-dollar corruption.
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Source: Gestion
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