Venezuela latest: Nicolás Maduro to be inaugurated for a third term, defying evidence of fraud

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro will be sworn in for a third six-year term Friday despite international condemnation of his recent reelection as illegitimate, as his administration grows increasingly brazen in cracking down on opponents.

While his supporters are expected to rally, it is unclear whether opponents will head to the streets after aides to a key opposition leader said she was briefly detained Thursday following an anti-government demonstration in the capital, Caracas.

Here’s the latest:

Maduro arrives to heavily guarded palace before inauguration

Authorities announced the arrival of Maduro and other leaders to Venezuela’s legislative palace, where he is set to be sworn in shortly.

The building is being heavily guarded by police, military and intelligence officers. In adjacent streets and a nearby plaza, people, many sporting pro-Maduro T-shirts, are already gathering.

Flights suspended, border closed between Venezuela and Colombia

Venezuelan authorities have announced the suspension of commercial flights and the closure of borders between Venezuela and Colombia, a country with which it shares a 2,200-kilometer (1,367-mile) border.

The measure, which came into effect at 5 a.m. Friday local time and will last 72 hours, came after former opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González promised to return to the country to be sworn in as president..

González, who returned to Latin America last weekend from his self-exile in Madrid, is recognized as president-elect by the United States, several countries in the region and international organizations such as the Organization of American States. He hasn’t offered details of how he intends to enter the country to appear at the inauguration and strip Maduro of power.

Costa Rica’s former President Laura Chinchilla — part of the delegation of former leaders accompanying González — said Thursday he was still intending to enter Venezuela on Friday, without providing details. She spoke at the hotel in the Dominican Republic where they were staying.

Maduro has weathered condemnation before

Maduro is facing more international rebuke than at any time in his nearly 12 years in power. The self-declared socialist has clung to power despite credible evidence that he lost last year’s election by a landslide. That sparked criticism by the United States and others that the vote was stolen.

But this isn’t the first time Maduro’s claim to power has been questioned. Dozens of countries led by the U.S. condemned his 2018 re-election as a sham and recognized Juan Guaidó, the then-head of the National Assembly, as Venezuela’s legitimate leader.

The opposition leader even led a parallel government for a few years, bolstered by the Donald Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign of punishing economic sanctions, and until the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic, repeatedly commandeered massive anti-Maduro protests. The anti-Maduro sentiment stemmed from the political, social and economic crisis that pushed millions into poverty, hunger, poor health, crime, desperation and migration.

Maduro, who took power in 2013 following Hugo Chávez’s death from cancer, has seen the entirety of his time in office marked by the crisis. Without “El Comandante” in charge, the economy entered a death spiral — shrinking 71% from 2012 to 2020, with inflation topping 130,000%.

Ahead of last year’s election, voters across the country repeatedly said they or their loved ones would emigrate if Maduro remained in power. Under his watch, more than 7.7 million Venezuelans have already left their homeland in search of better living conditions.

Kidnapping and arrests ahead of Maduro’s swearing-in

This week alone, masked gunmen arrested a former presidential candidate, a prominent free speech activist and the son-in-law of self-exiled opposition leader González.

González, who handily won last year’s election according to tally sheets activists collected from electronic voting machines, said his son-in-law was kidnapped Tuesday in Caracas by hooded men wearing black while en route to drop off his children at school.

On Thursday, the eve of Maduro’s inauguration, aides to opposition leader María Corina Machado said she was detained, followed moments later by official denials, in a confusing episode that capped a day of protests. She was freed after she was coerced into recording various videos, according to her aides.

Sharing cells in the country’s packed prisons with the hundreds of government opponents arrested since the election are as many as 10 Americans. Most have not had access to a lawyer and only limited contact with family members, who worry they could be subject to torture, as past American detainees have alleged.

None has been declared wrongfully detained by the State Department, a designation that would give their cases more attention. Because the U.S. has no diplomatic presence in Venezuela, their families can face a long process pushing for their release. The Americans’ detentions add another complication to the many Venezuela challenges that await President-elect Trump when he returns to the White House on Jan. 20.

Evidence of election fraud

Electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner hours after polls closed on July 28, but unlike in previous presidential elections, they did not provide detailed vote counts.

At the same time, the main opposition coalition collected tally sheets from 85% of electronic voting machines, posted them online and said they showed that González thrashed Maduro by a more than two-to-one margin. Experts from the Atlanta-based Carter Center, invited by Maduro’s government to observe the election, have said the tally sheets published by the opposition are legitimate.

Global condemnation over the lack of transparency prompted Maduro to ask the country’s high court — also filled with allies of his United Socialist Party of Venezuela — to audit the election results. The court reaffirmed Maduro’s victory without providing thorough evidence and encouraged the electoral council to release the vote counts. But neither the council nor the ruling party produced any evidence.

González met Monday with U.S. President Joe Biden as the retired diplomat tried to rally support for his effort to get Maduro out of office before Friday, when by law the South American country’s next presidential term begins.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america