Latest News

But beneath the surface, the array of factions Mr. Maduro must contend with seems daunting, from radical armed cells in this city's slums to privileged bureaucrats with strong ties to Cuba, Venezuela's top ally, to what is arguably the most powerful pro-Chávez group of all: senior military figures whose sway across Venezuela was significantly bolstered by the deceased leader.

Of the 20 states in Venezuela controlled by governors from the United Socialist Party, which Mr. Chávez created to solidify his movement, 11 are led by former military officers. About a quarter of the ministers in Mr. Maduro's cabinet, which he inherits from Mr. Chávez, rose through the ranks of the armed forces. Powerful military figures remain at the helm of state companies like the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation, a sprawling conglomerate involved in mining gold and producing aluminum.

The influence of the armed forces, including a militia force believed to number more than 120,000, reflects the efforts of Mr. Chávez, a former soldier who led a failed coup attempt in 1992, to imbue society with military ideals. At the same time, he tolerated illicit enrichment schemes within the armed forces, even chafing at international censure of powerful generals accused of involvement in drug trafficking by appointing them to important posts.

"Not even Chávez could rule without constantly surveying the military landscape for signs of resistance, periodically punishing and purging some in the higher ranks while rewarding others," said Rocío San Miguel, a legal scholar who heads an organization that monitors Venezuelan security issues.

Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Maduro, now the interim president and a candidate in the special presidential election scheduled for next month, never served in the military. He was a union organizer and legislator before serving for years as Mr. Chávez's globe-trotting foreign minister. (He faces Henrique Capriles Radonski, a state governor and former presidential candidate, in the election. Mr. Capriles accepted the nomination of the opposition coalition on Sunday night.)

Security analysts here do not foresee a classic challenge to Mr. Maduro from the armed forces in the form of officers publicly not recognizing his authority, or plotting to remove him from office.

In fact, in a move that has elicited criticism from opposition leaders who say the Constitution bars the armed forces from taking sides in political campaigns, the top military official in the cabinet, Defense Minister Diego Molero Bellavia, has already explicitly backed Mr. Maduro by calling on voters to "give a good thrashing to all those fascists" of the opposition.

The head of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, a former military officer who took part in Mr. Chávez's 1992 coup attempt, has also pledged to support Mr. Maduro. Mr. Cabello, who is one of the most powerful figures in Mr. Chávez's political movement and has broad support in the army, is often viewed as a potential rival to Mr. Maduro.

Still, potential pitfalls abound for Mr. Maduro in his relations with a military establishment tarnished by scandals and criticism from other pro-Chávez factions. For instance, the United States Treasury has accused two senior military figures, Henry Rangel Silva, the former head of Venezuela's intelligence agency, and Hugo Carvajal, the former director of the Military Intelligence Directorate, of assisting the drug trafficking activities of Latin America's largest guerrilla army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Last year, Mr. Chávez appointed Mr. Rangel as defense minister, a post he held before successfully running for governor of Trujillo State, while Mr. Carvajal was appointed director of Venezuela's agency for combating organized crime. Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, another former officer accused of assisting the FARC in buying weapons with proceeds from narcotics, is now the governor of Guárico State.

Venezuela has become one of the largest transshipment points for smuggling cocaine into the United States, and a captured drug trafficker, Walid Makled García, has said that his smuggling network was made viable through the cooperation of several former generals, including Luis Felipe Acosta Carlez, a political figure in Carabobo State.

There is also festering tension between military leaders and pro-Chávez groups who view some in the armed forces as overstepping their authority, illicitly accumulating fortunes or simply as incompetent managers.

In February, indigenous groups in southern Venezuela demanded the resignation of a top general, Clíver Alcalá Cordones, accusing him of belonging to the "extreme far-right reactionary bourgeois" wing of the armed forces after soldiers under his command moved to limit gold mining in some areas.

And in Ciudad Guayana, the industrial city designed by planners from M.I.T. and Harvard in the 1960s, Rafael Gil Barrios, a former military official who is president of the huge state-owned industrial conglomerate based there, has been grappling with strikes this year, highlighting the inability of state-controlled enterprises to operate efficiently and resolve shortages of basic products.

"Chávez was a master at addressing very different interests and holding them together as the undisputed leader," said Jennifer McCoy, the Americas program director at the Carter Center in Atlanta. "Maduro has the temperament to talk to different people, and he can be quite reasonable and pragmatic. But he will need all his negotiating skills to manage the competing ideas and interests within the movement."

Mr. Chávez constantly monitored the armed forces for signs of dissent, culling hundreds of officers viewed as having questionable loyalty, cashiering defense ministers and jailing high-ranking officers suspected of conspiring to oust him.

One former army chief, Raúl Isaías Baduel, who helped return Mr. Chávez to power after a brief coup, broke with him in 2007. He was arrested in 2009 on corruption charges, accusations he contends are retaliation for his criticism of Mr. Chávez, and remains imprisoned to this day.

Deciphering such shifts in loyalty within the armed forces obsesses some here as they attempt to make sense of what comes next. "The military men choose the side that is best for them," said Carlos Diz, 51, an aviation technician. "They might say they support Maduro and maybe nothing will happen now, but they cannot be satisfied with a civilian in power after 14 years of Chávez."