Nicolas Maduro: profile of Hugo Chavez's vice-president and successor These words, captured on a forgotten microphone, were the only occasion when Mr Maduro has been known to stray off-message. In every other respect, the former bus driver who became vice-president of Venezuela last October has built his entire career on loyalty and obedience to Chavez. He first met Chavez in 1994 when the then paratrooper was released from prison after leading a failed military coup against a wayward but elected government. Inspired by Chavez's blend of socialism and populism, Mr Maduro had campaigned for his freedom. This first circle of "Chavistas" was a closely knit club: another activist, Cilicia, became Mr Maduro's wife. For the next six years, Mr Maduro was a loyal purveyor of "Chavismo" around the world. The "commandante" used his personal brand of diplomacy to build an anti-American front, recruiting leaders as unsavoury and eccentric as Presidents Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. Mr Maduro was the obedient enforcer of his master's highly personal foreign policy, leading Chavez to hail him as a "complete revolutionary." This pedigree as a "Chavista" suggests that Mr Maduro will use his presidency to press ahead with the "Bolivarian Socialist Revolution." Some opponents of Venezuela's government fear that he will prove more repressive and intolerant than his late master. Yet Mr Maduro could also be changed by the realities of power. "Maduro is untested and it's hard to know how these individuals will behave when they're actually in power," said Prof Victor Bulmer-Thomas from the Institute of the Americas at University College London. If anyone tells you that they know how Maduro will behave as president, don't trust them. For the first time in his political career, Mr Maduro is no longer in the shadow of Chavez. Even he might not know how he will respond to the pressures of power.