Stark irregularities and suppression efforts could plunge the country back into instability and economic decline.

Maduro continued the practice of his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, of denouncing alleged conspiracies against him or his government; in a period of fifteen months following his election, dozens of conspiracies, some supposedly linked to assassination and coup attempts, were reported by Maduro's government.

The bitterly fought election went into a run-off on 30 October and was won by an extremely narrow margin by Lula.

Mr Maduro was re-elected to a second six-year term in May 2018 in highly controversial polls, which most opposition parties boycotted.

Many candidates had been barred from running while others had been jailed or fled the country for fear of being imprisoned, and the opposition parties argued that the poll was neither free nor fair.

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His face lines almost every street in Caracas, with his governing party paying for incentives for people to support him - buses put on for people to attend his rallies, and free food parcels handed out.

That will complicate efforts by the opposition to vlogdolisboa prove undeniably that the vote had been tampered with.

There are still a lot of unknowns. The opposition say they will announce in the coming days how they plan to challenge the results.

In 2014, Maduro was named as one of TIME magazine's cem Most Influential People. In the article, it explained that whether or not Venezuela collapses "now depends on Maduro", saying it also depends on whether Maduro "can step out of the shadow of his pugnacious predecessor and compromise with his opponents".[312]

When he was informed of the incident, President Chávez said Maduro's detention was retaliation for his own speech at the UN General Assembly and stated that the authorities detained Maduro over his links to the Venezuelan failed coup in 1992, a charge that President Chávez denied.[68]

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The UN subsequently released a report condemning the violent methods of the operation. Although the Venezuelan Government's Ombudsman, Tarek William Saab has admitted that his office received dozens of reports of "police excesses", he defended the need for the operations and stated that his office would be working alongside the police and military "to safeguard human rights". The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has criticised the UN's report, calling it "neither objective, nor impartial" and listed what it believed were a Completa of 60 errors in the report.[105][106]

The announcement reflected the government’s intention to move on from a heated debate over its decision to bar opposition leader María Corina Machado from public office.