CARACAS – Nicolás Maduro, who will be inaugurated today for his second term as president of Venezuela, has criticized Chile’s President Piñera in a press conference. He called the Chilean leader “a puppet of Pinochet, who is doing worse than ever in his second administration”. The Lima Group, of which Chile is part, had announced earlier not to recognize the Maduro administration, due to irregularities during the elections.
As the Lima Group, minus Mexico, doesn´t recognize the second Maduro administration, Maduro decided to call out the respective presidents and leaders one by one during a press conference in Caracas on Wednesday.
Maduro called Chilean president Sebastián Piñera a “muppet of Pinochet”.
He added that “the administration of Piñera fails and is doing worse than ever in its second term. Piñera has already 68 percent of the public opinion in Chile against him.”
Maduro went on recalling that Piñera was only elected with 26,5 percent of the votes, which is “9 percent less than this boy here, from these neighborhoods. I am a worker who loves his country, I am not a mogul like Piñera”.
Maduro: “Chile is victim of a campaign against the Bolivarian revolution”
Chile responds: “Insults are completely out of place”
After the rant, various ministers from Chile took a stand for their president. Foreign minister Roberto Ampuero strongly condemned what he called an “insult” and said Maduro should “prepare to face the International Court of Justice”.
Minister of Internal Affairs Andrés Chadwick called the insults “out of place” and said that Maduro should worry about his own people.
“President Maduro, you should worry about the deep humanitarian crisis. Your people are hungry, your people want to leave Venezuela, your people are suffering. There is no freedom, there is no democracy, there are no medicines”, Chadwick said.
Editor-In-Chief Boris van der Spek is the founder of Chile Today.