Venezuela’s Maduro enters 2023 seeking global recognition

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was not invited to a summit of Western Hemisphere leaders in June. But by October, he traveled to Egypt for a conference where he joked with French President Emmanuel Macron and shook hands with John Kerry, the U.S. government’s climate envoy.
The encounters, with a towering Maduro graciously smiling throughout, were carefully captured on video, posted on social media and broadcast on Venezuela’s state television.
A few months short of a decade since he inherited the country’s leadership upon the death of President Hugo Chavez, Maduro is working to regain the international recognition he lost when his 2018 re-election was deemed a sham by dozens of nations.
Those efforts are also aimed at bolstering his strength at home as he enters 2023 while pressure mounts for a free and fair presidential election the following year.