While few have gone as far as Belarus, which named a park after Hugo Chávez, there's no shortage of left-leaning European politicians who backed the late Venezuelan leader and his successor, President Nicolás Maduro, whose grab for more power is becoming hard to defend.

Chávez's "Bolivarian revolution," which promised to combat inequality by nationalizing and redistributing Venezuela's oil, seduced many politicians in Latin America and Europe, especially in his first decade in power when, according to a 2009 study by the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, he cut the poverty rate by more than half.

Under President Maduro, Chávez's heir who succeeded him in 2013, Venezuela has slid further and further toward one-man rule. Protests erupted when the Supreme Court announced on March 29 that it was taking over the powers of the opposition-controlled National Assembly. At the end of last month, Maduro managed to get a new Constituent Assembly elected, with powers to dissolve the National Assembly.

A U.N. human rights agency said more than 5,000 people were arbitrarily detained between the beginning of April and the end of July. The death toll from the unrest is about 125, according to the Venezuelan attorney general's office.

The turmoil is largely linked to economic collapse, including high inflation and a shortage of staple foods, triggered by the decline in oil prices since 2014. Poverty levels have shot back up again, with one survey estimating that 80 percent of the population lives now in poverty.

Although the European Union has unequivocally condemned Maduro's latest power grab — EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini this week urged him to suspend its implementation, voicing concern that it provides "an excuse to further drive conflict and use power unchecked" — some leading voices in European public life still find it hard to shake off their admiration for the Bolivarian revolution:

Jeremy Corbyn

The British Labour leader is a long-standing Chavista who in 2013 described Chávez as “an inspiration to all of us fighting back against austerity and neoliberal economics in Europe.” In 2014, he called to congratulate the new president, Maduro, live on Venezuelan TV, and was introduced by Maduro as a “friend of Venezuela.” Asked this week whether he was prepared to condemn Maduro’s actions, Corbyn said: “What I condemn is the violence that’s been done by any side, by all sides, in all this.” He refused to express regret for his support for Maduro.

Alexis Tsipras

The Greek prime minister and leader of the left-wing Syriza party was one of the few European politicians who attended Chávez's funeral. He once mentioned Venezuela as an anti-capitalist model and his aides say one of his heroes is Chávez, with whom he shares a birthday (July 28). According to a recent press report, as opposition leader, Tsipras sought cheap Venezuelan oil and diplomatic support in the case of a Greek exit from the eurozone. The report cites a former Venezuelan minister, who said Tsipras traveled to Moscow in July 2013 for a secret meeting with a Venezuelan official.

Pablo Iglesias

Podemos, the left-wing Spanish anti-austerity movement led by Iglesias, has long been plagued by allegations of funding from Venezuela and Iran. Last year, the conservative daily ABC published documents allegedly showing that between 2008 and 2012, a think tank close to Podemos, the Centro de Estudios Políticos y Sociales (Ceps), received €7 million from the Venezuelan government. The donations were intended to forge “closer links between left-wing and anti-capitalist forces in Spain," the documents said. Iglesias rejected the accusations which, he said, “have already been thrown out three times, twice by the supreme court and once by the district attorney.”

Jean-Luc Mélenchon

The leader of far-left party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), who has called a big demonstration against President Emmanuel Macron on September 23, makes no secret of his admiration for the Bolivarian revolution and its leaders. In 2013, after the death of Chávez, he wrote in the communist newspaper L'Humanité that “the Bolivarian revolution is for us a source of inspiration.” He then hailed Maduro's appointment as president in a tweet saying "we welcome Maduro's victory.” However, Mélenchon said in a French radio interview in April, when questioned about his support for the government in Caracas: "I don't support any dictatorship, I've never supported any dictatorship anywhere in the world."

Pope Francis

The Argentine-born pope has been a strong backer of the so-called progressive leaders in Latin America, like Bolivia's Evo Morales, and his critics accuse him of ambiguity regarding the government in Venezuela. The Vatican has attempted to mediate between Maduro and the opposition but, at a news conference in April, the pope appeared to blame the opposition for the lack of progress, saying: "Part of the opposition does not want this." Vatican analyst Sandro Magister wrote in May that the pope has been “unforgivably reckless with Maduro and Chavism, in addition to being incomprehensibly reticent on the victims of the repression and on the aggression that is striking the Church itself.”

5Star Movement

The anti-establishment 5Star Movement, which currently ranks first in some opinion polls, resists categorization as left- or right-wing but stands accused of ambiguity over Venezuela. While it has asked the U.N. to investigate claims of fraud in the election of the Constituent Assembly, when a delegation of 5Star lawmakers visited Venezuela in March, one of them appeared to justify Maduro's policies by making a comparison with Italy, saying that at home too “many people live in bad conditions, there are many young jobless people." Alessandro Di Battista, who would very likely be the movement's foreign minister if it won power, said: "Both sides have made many mistakes.”