Venezuela is facing a cratering economy and political deadlock but the president still finds time to show off his 70s dance music chops on his own radio show

“It’s time for salsaaaaa!” croons the newest DJ on Venezuela’s national daytime radio. “Pay attention, this is the force of happiness,” he tells his listeners.

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The frenetic rhythms of the 1973 Ray Barreto classic Indestructible begin to drown out his rich tones before the chorus kicks in: “They can’t destroy me … they can’t destroy me.”



Amid an escalating humanitarian crisis, and after the abrupt suspension of a referendum designed to oust him from power, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro has launched a midday radio show.

But La Hora de la Salsa has drawn outright derision from the president’s critics, who see it as tactless and mistimed, given the country’s cratering economy and acute shortages of medicine and food.

“This is like the orchestra on the Titanic,” wrote one commentator on the show’s Facebook Live page (which last week was struggling to attract more than 100 viewers).

“It is a joke,” said the opposition leader Henrique Capriles. “He should show more respect for the Venezuelan people.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest President Maduro spins the ‘First Combatant’, his wife Cilia Flores during his salsa show. Photograph: Presidencia/AFP/Getty Images

The president, who seems to have a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of 1970s salsa, sits in the presenter’s chair most Tuesdays and Fridays. At the end of the programme, he likes to reveal some proficient dance moves, spinning his wife, Celia Flores, AKA “the first combatant”, round the studio.

“Our people surely have the right to have some fun,” boomed Maduro to his co-host, the Latin music guru Javier Key, during the opening show.



Aware of at least one sensitivity, the video feed of the programme cut away every time the president helped himself to the plates of charcuterie and cakes that were served to keep him going during the four-hour show.

As well as introducing the songs, and occasionally shaking a couple of maracas, the president takes calls, talks politics, reads supportive messages and even signs government papers.

In one recent edition, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega called in on a barely audible line from Managua, having just secured a third-term election victory, in a vote described by the country’s opposition as rigged.

Maduro heartily congratulated him on the result, which he described as “world-record breaking”.

Last Friday, the president, whose annual budget has not been approved by the opposition-controlled national assembly, used the show to sign off multimillion-dollar spending on a range of projects, from the refurbishment of a hospital in the city of Maracay, to a water purification project in the state of Miranda.

“Approved,” he declared, with a flourish, as he faded up the next salsa tune.

The president appears to be trying to recapture some of the magic of his predecessor and mentor, the late Hugo Chávez.

His long-running Sunday TV show Aló Presidente, was popular partly because nobody quite knew what the maverick leader might do or say next. On one programme, the Comandante strode through one of the oldest squares in Caracas, expropriating properties live on air.

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The show had its musical interludes too: Chávez endeared himself to his core supporters with his pitch-perfect rendition of Venezuelan country songs.



But those were different times. Chávez had oil trillions to spend, a military background and a natural charisma, none of which Maduro can depend upon. Polls rank the current president’s support at around 25%. That may be more than respectable for leaders in some western democracies, but it is debilitating when trying to lead what the government still insists is a popular revolution. Most Venezuelans say they would vote to remove him from office, given a chance.



The government insists the next opportunity to do that will not be until the next presidential elections, at the end of 2018. An opposition-backed attempt to bring about a mid-term recall referendum seems to have been successfully blocked by pro-government courts and a tame electoral authority.

Maduro repeatedly makes references to his exasperated opposition during the radio show, dedicating salsa tunes with what he sees as appropriate titles to his foes.

A main target is Henry Ramos Allup, the 73-year-old head of the national assembly. On a recent show, Maduro dedicated La Eliminacion de las Feos (“the elimination of the ugly ones”), by the Puerto Rican Group El Gran Combo, to Ramos Allup.

“The opposition are all ugly, aren’t they,” he chortled, before cueing up the next track.