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Venezuelan General With No Oil-Industry Experience to Lead State Sector

By Anatoly Kurmanaev

“[President Maduro] clearly needs the military in order to maintain control," observed AS/COA's Eric Farnsworth. 

President Nicolás Maduro named an active general to lead the state oil industry, the nation’s last major economic sector that had been outside the military’s control.

National Guard Maj. Gen. Manuel Quevedo will be the new energy minister and president of state-run Petróleos de Venezuela SA, known as PdVSA, which accounts for almost all the country’s foreign-currency income...

Mr. Maduro said Gen. Quevedo would spearhead the continuing anticorruption campaign in an effort to turn around the company’s fortunes...

Other analysts said the move is part of an effort to keep the military—an essential pillar of support for Mr. Maduro’s government—happy.

“He clearly needs the military in order to maintain control and has made an accommodation with them,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Americas Council/Council of the Americas think tank. “He has made an accommodation with them—they support him and he gives them access to the fruits of the state.”...

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