Two serious breaches in the security rings -in Margarita and San Félix- have recently called into question the effectiveness of the Venezuelan president's personal guard. A review of the high command of the Military House reveals that it is made up of a group of officers whose merits for these positions have to do with the personal trust of the couple in charge of the Miraflores Palace and political loyalty. In exchange, the military hold powers to hold several positions at the same time, a certain invisibility and even to contract with the State without receiving sanctions. This report follows the growth of the Presidential Honor Guard and the trajectory of its visible faces

KATHERINE PENNACCHIO

While in the Marvel universe the task of protecting the world from external attacks is in charge of a group known as the Fantastic 4, President Nicolás Maduro also has his four champions dedicated to protecting the president and his family. They are the military officers who command the Presidential Honor Guard.
The Presidential Honor Guard is the unit in charge of providing Nicolás Maduro, President of the Republic and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and his immediate family members, "the security, custody, protection and other guarantees necessary for their free development." as expressed in the Organic Law of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (Fanb). Its origin precedes the arrival of the Bolivarian revolution to power; in fact, it vindicates antecedents that go back to the Company of Hussars created by the Liberator Simón Bolívar himself in February 1815 through a decree that he issued in Mompox, on the banks of the Magdalena River, in Colombia.
The Honor Guard is part of the Office of the Presidency, commanded by retired Admiral Carmen Meléndez -former Defense Minister and current head of the bureau-, and is a complementary entity to the FANB, with a rank similar to that of the Bolivarian Militia.
The review of more than 2.763 editions of the Official Gazette of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as part of the collaborative open data project Vendata -led by the Press and Society Institute (Ipys Venezuela) and Transparencia Venezuela-, allowed the identification of the four officers, who usually keep a low profile, as well as verifying that, during the four years of the government of Nicolás Maduro, the unit under their charge it has grown by 48%, both in structure and in the publication of appointments and delegation of functions, compared to the last years of the mandate of his predecessor Hugo Chávez.

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