Alejandro Peña Esclusa (1954) is a Venezuelan writer, analyst and political expert who participated in the anti-socialist struggles of the political opposition in Venezuela and finally had to leave his country. He has written five books on the marxist cultural war and the influence of the São Paulo Forum (FSP), and now is a leading expert at the Christian Democratic Institute and Senior Fellow at the Center for Fundamental Rights in Budapest.
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After years of constant turmoil, there was a turning point in Venezuelan history in 1998: the presidential election. You run as a candidate for the presidency. Why?
I run because I was worried that Hugo Chávez would win. I didn’t win because I didn’t have the power, the money and the infrastructure to run the campaign. I just wanted to warn everybody that if he became the president of Venezuela, he would destroy our country.
What was your proof of that statement? Because he hadn’t been in power, he was only known as a participant in a coup d’etat. How did you know about him?
What I knew of him was that on 30 May 1995 he inscribed himself to the São Paulo Forum (FSP), and I knew about this left-wing political organization. So he didn’t have any possibility to win the Venezuelan presidential election unless he forged alliance with the international left. And he did that. He got support from guerillas and criminal organizations, and I knew that with that alliance he would destroy Venezuela. That was the information I had.
What do you mean by the notion ‘destroying Venezuela’?
Well, my fear was that he would give away our country to Cuba. And that actually happened later, and I have videos of myself saying that would happen in 1998. That means socialism, deconstructing the economy, the end of liberty, which in turn means the end of democracy.
Hugo Chavez finally won that election. What was his secret?
He lied.
That’s a huge advantage, I guess.
He lied. The people were so crazy about voting for a change, so they didn’t think. They wanted a change. And some reasons for that are understandable, but the change they voted for was leading the country into the abyss. Chávez presented himself as a military man who is straightforward, who restores law, order and authority, but actually he worked for Fidel Castro. So he lied.
The Bolivarian Revolution started then. They changed the Constitution and started social welfare programmes. The numbers were quite good, but the state has become authoritarian. How quickly did the things change?
Very fast, because Chávez knew he had only little time to change the structure of the country. They wanted to transform a democratic country into a structurally socialist country. The numbers of the economy were good, however, that was not because of his actions, but because he was lucky enough that the oil price per barrel went up from $22 to $100. That’s why the economy went up. That was not because of him, that was only a stroke of luck.
‘I would say that the strongest anti-communist country in the world today is Venezuela’
Your country, Venezuela is an oil-rich country, it has the largest oil reserves in the world. Still it has become one of the poorest nations. How?
Well, this is what socialists do. They start to persecute adversaries, destroy private enterprises. Why? Because a private entrepreneur is a person who thinks independently, a person who is educated, a person who is the enemy of socialism, so they needed to destroy the entrepreneurs, and to use all their money to subsidize people. And that’s not the way the economy works. People work hard in private enterprises, and they produce goods, but not by using the money of the government to subsidize people.
How popular was this special socialist ideology and policymaking in Venezuela?
I would say that the strongest anti-communist country in the world today is Venezuela. Because we in Venezuela have lived under a socialist dictatorship, so people don’t want that, they want capitalism today. But if you go against the government, you get persecuted. So people want a change, but their hands are tied.
In the 2010s corruption and poverty re-emerged, and the worst scenario appeared: low quality of life and narrowing individual liberties. Were these the two major factors responsible for the evaporation of public support for the regime?
In the beginning people didn’t realize that this had happened, because it was blurred by the fact that they had money and the price of oil went up to $100. So that was the illusion, the appearance of a better economy, so people were happy in the beginning, but meanwhile Chávez was destroying the democracy, taking control of all powers.
‘He has nothing to offer: no freedom, no happiness, only destruction’
What about the future? What are the chances that his successor, President Nicolás Maduro, can fall?
It’s very difficult for him to stay in power. There are several reasons for that. First, he destroyed the economy and people hate him. Second, he lost the last election on 28 July 2024 by 37 point difference. He lost even in the military garrisons; public servicemen voted against him; poor people, rich people voted against him; nobody likes him. Then he is a wanted criminal in the United States for being the head of a drug trafficking cartel. He has a ransom of 25 million dollars for his capture. He is also linked to Islamic terrorist organizations. So it’s very difficult for him to stay in power. Especially that he has nothing to offer. He has nothing to offer: no freedom, no happiness, only destruction.
So what keeps him in power now?
He’s in power because the high commander of armed forces has agreed to use military forces against the population. In Venezuela, if you are stopped by the police, and they find any bad things about the government in your telephone, you go to jail. There is terror—that is the only reason why he is in power. A person who rules a country with an iron fist cannot last long. You must offer something else, but he can’t.
What is your intuition: for how many months or years can he stay in power?
Less than we would think of, mostly because of the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House. That will accelerate things in Venezuela. One of the most important things Donald Trump has done since is that he has designated the drog cartels as terrorist organizations. It is great news for us, because that means that Nicolás Maduro is a terrorist, since he is the head of a drug cartel.
You were one of the very visible figures of the opposition protesters. In 2010 you got imprisoned in El Helicoide, a notorious prison. Under what conditions did you spend one year there?
El Helicoide is the most famous prison in Venezuela, because it is where the political prisoners are held. The cells are inside the structure, in the centre of the building, so you never see the sunlight. I spent one year inside. Let’s say that I was treated well—there were many people who were tortured there, but I was not one of them. It depends on how you behave there. I respected the guards, because I had no problem with them, I had problems with Hugo Chávez. So I behaved respectfully, and the guards respected me too. I used my time to study, to grow spiritually and intellectually, to do sports, so it was a year of growing politically, intellectually, and spiritually. When you are in jail, you will have ideas, and it can make you a better person. It’s difficult to understand.
After being released, how could you live under the surveillance and multiple bans of the regime?
I was released under terrible conditions: I couldn’t write, I couldn’t speak politically, I couldn’t give interviews like this, I couldn’t leave the country, I couldn’t have a passport—in fact, I still cannot have one. They took my nationality away, and I had to visit a judge month by month to say I was here, and that went on for ten years. So finally I decided to escape, and I passed through the jungle to Colombia without a passport—but with my wife.
You crossed the borders?
Yes. But first, I had my three girls leave Venezuela, because if you are a politically persecuted person and you escape, then they put your kids in jail to force you to come back. So I sent them away, and then I escaped with my wife, and then finally I decided to come to Europe, because Gustavo Petro, a friend of Maduro won the election in Colombia, and the situation had become fragile for me.
‘If you are a politically persecuted person and you escape, then they put your kids in jail to force you to come back’
You are a stark critic of São Paulo Forum, an umbrella organization of the Left in Latin America. The FSP was a catalyst for many social experiments in many Latin American nations, and almost all of them have failed. What is its influence on governments?
Well, first, it is the most powerful political organization in Latin America, because it controls 11 government in the continent, and they all cooperate. Secondly, since it was created 34 years ago, it has become more and more a criminal organization; at present it’s not so much political, but rather a criminal group, expanding its activities to other parts of the world like Europe or the United States.
What do you mean by ‘criminal’? Because it’s a legal term.
That it’s composed of criminals. Because many of them are related to drug trafficking, violence, guerilla groups and Islamic terrorist groups. Nicolás Maduro has a ransom of 25 million dollars on him. Venezuela pushes 20–25 per cent of its cocaine into the western hemisphere, through Africa into Europe and the United States. Or: the son of the Colombian president publicly said that Gustavo Petro had received money from drug traffickers for his election campaign; former president of Peru Pedro Castillo is in jail now, because he attempted a coup to dissolve the Congress and become a dictator; the former president of Ecuador was found guilty for corruption; former president of Argentina Christina Kirchner was also found guilty of corruption. Then Evo Morales not only commited a fraud in 2019, but he’s been persecuted for the sexual harrassments of teenage girls. And so on. So I’m saying this is a criminal organization which is expanding to the United States and to Europe. For example, there is a party called Podemos in Spain, which was created by the São Paulo Forum, then there is a party in Slovenia called Levica, created by the Venezuelan Embassy in Slovenia. This is not very far away, this is something that effects the future of Europe.
How do they cooperate? And what is their real goal?
I know it’s polemical when I’m saying this, but I have an increasing feeling that the international left is more interested in crime, money and drugs than in politics. They use politics in order to get what they want. What you see in Spain, prime minister Pedro Sánchez becoming a dictator is pretty much something like a member of the São Paulo Forum is expected to do. I mean, the left is shifting more and more into a criminal international structure, where the politics is secondary and the crime is priority. And the reason can be that in their ideology there is no place for God, family or nation, all that keeps you honest.
How come they still have a majority in many Latin American countries?
Because they commit fraud. Once they get elected, six months later people start to hate them. And then they start doing frauds again. I wrote a book called The Electoral Frauds of the São Paulo Forum, which is available in Hungarian too, it was published by the Christian Democratic Institute and the Center for Fundamental Rights. In it, I’ve collected the methods of frauds they commit—everyone can read it.
Is your latest book, Classical Art and Cultural Marxism, also about Marxist cultural warfare?
It was published one and a half year ago in Spanish, then in English, in Portuguese, in Slovenian, and finally in Hungarian last December. I wrote this, because I couldn’t understand why countries commit suicide collectively, why people vote for someone like Hugo Chávez. I noticed that it’s because people were victims of a cultural warfare, a war against principles, God, family, nation, love, beauty and faith. This is what Antonio Gramsci, the founder of the Italian communist party was an expert in. He knew that if you destroy the principles of a society, that society can be conquered.
The São Paulo Forum does the same: first, they destroy the sense of reality concerning truth, right or wrong, family, etc—if you convince a man that he can be a woman, then you can convince that person about whatever you want. That is cultural warfare. The objective of my book is to observe this, and to propose an alternative. And the alternative is classical art, because if you see all the works, the literature of Shakespeare, Schiller, the classical poetry or the classical architecture in Florence, or if you see the paintings of Raffaello, or listen to the music of Beethoven, Mozart, then in all those works the idea is always present that man was created in the image of God, and that an eternal truth exists. No relativism in classical art. As pope Benedict XVI said: the most important problem of the modern society is relativism, the notion that there’s no truth, and that there’s no tool to measure good or bad. This is terrible, because it takes away from you the capacity to lead your life rightfully.
How could the presidency of Donald Trump change the political landscape of Latin America? What do you expect from his four years?
Trump is the opposite of Biden. Biden was weak, Biden was woke, Biden let everything happen in Latin America without reacting to it. What we like about Trump is that he is against crime, against drugs, against terrorism, and that’s all we need. If there is a strong government in the USA that will help Latin America fight against drugs and terrorism, that’s all we need. If drugs and terrorism are defeated, the São Paulo Forum is also defeated. We have a democratic region that will share with Hungary the same values like family, God or Western civilization. We are Christians in Latin America, but we are now being infiltrated by terrorism and drugs.
‘What we like about Trump is that he is against crime, against drugs, against terrorism, and that’s all we need’
We have a continent with such a great potential, because it’s 20 million km² with 650 million people who basically speak the same language, share the same culture, have the same identity—that’s very powerful. We have then a huge potential for investment and development. I dream about the idea of building a strong relationship between Latin America and Hungary, because we’re so alike, the only difference being the distance between our languages. But our values are the same.
For your vision one more thing is needed: a strong and trustworthy leadership on the conservative side. Do you have that?
It’s in construction. As a reaction to the São Paulo Forum, we have strong conservative parties. I’m very proud and grateful to be a conservative Latin American person. I would say I’m a pioneer: I was a conservative in Venezuela back in that time when many people haven’t understood the concept yet. But they do now.
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