The vanishing of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela

For years his bewhiskered face stared from propaganda billboards and factories made plastic action figures that lauded Nicolás Maduro as 'indestructible' and an 'iron-fisted' caped crusader nicknamed 'Super Moustache'. Authorities even branded dustbins, garbage trucks and overpasses with silhouettes of the autocrat's stache.

Five months after US special forces toppled Maduro, his heavily curated cult of personality is collapsing as the deposed president is being airbrushed out of Venezuelan history by former allies who seem desperate to move on. Giant images of Maduro and his also incarcerated wife, Cilia Flores, still adorn the capital's main arteries, some stamped with the hashtag #WeWantThemBackNow, and a count-up clock logs the number of days since the couple's kidnapping.

Around Miraflores pro-regime graffiti declares 'Que viva Maduro, carajo!' and 'We love Maduro', but across the country billboards and paintings are being dismantled, erased or left to rot.

Venezuela, Miraflores

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