Os venezuela Diaries
Social unrest, looting, and violence were on the rise, and in April the government was forced to reduce its workweek to two days in order to save energy (partly because of shortages of hydroelectric power brought about by El Niño-derived drought). Meanwhile, the opposition pushed forward with an effort to put Maduro to a recall vote. By early May some 1.oito million signatures (nine times the amount required) had been collected on a petition to trigger a broader petition (that would require the signatures of 20 percent of eligible voters) on whether to hold a recall vote.
In the 20th century Venezuela was transformed from a relatively poor agrarian society to a rapidly urbanizing one, a condition made possible by exploiting huge petroleum reserves. These changes, however, were accompanied by imbalances among the country’s regions and socioeconomic groups, and Venezuela’s cities swelled because of a massive and largely uncontrolled migration from rural areas, as well as mass immigration, much of it illegal, from Colombia and other neighbours.
More than seven million Venezuelans have left their homeland since 2015 amid an ongoing economic and political crisis, according to new UN data.
Upon the death of Hugo Chávez on 5 March 2013, Maduro assumed the powers and responsibilities of the president. He appointed Jorge Arreaza to take his place as vice president. Since Chávez died within the first four years of his term, the Constitution of Venezuela stated that a presidential election had to be held within 30 days of his death.
Also in August 2016, the National Election Council ruled that the opposition had collected almost twice as many signatures as were necessary for the first petition for a referendum on Maduro’s recall to be valid. However, it did not set a date for the next step in the process, which required some four million signatures to be collected vlogdolisboa in three days.
On 18 July, he invited foreign diplomats to his residence in the capital, Brasilia, where he falsely claimed that the electronic voting machines used in Brazil were prone to being hacked and open to large-scale fraud.
The US has imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuela and on Mr Maduro and his inner circle but they have failed to weaken Mr Maduro enough to drive him from office. Some analysts argue that they offer the Maduro government a convenient scapegoat to blame for the dire state of the economy.
That will complicate efforts by the opposition to prove undeniably that the vote had been tampered with.
In Rio do Janeiro, about 20 protesters parked their cars and motorcycles at the entrance to a key bridge linking the city to a neighboring area across a bay. Waving large Brazilian flags, they shouted for an investigation into the results and stopped traffic for more than an hour before moving on.
The international community has been divided for some time over how to respond to Venezuela, with some governments’ conceding privately that the sanctions haven’t “worked”, either by incentivising regime change or compelling President Maduro to hold fair elections.
The case against the ex-president revolved around a speech he gave while he was still president in 2022.
” Maduro labeled the incident an “armed terrorist attack” and part of an attempted coup. That the attackers seemed to have easily escaped apprehension raised suspicions among some in the opposition that the incident had been staged by the government to justify additional repressive measures.
There were some poll stations that didn’t open at all, leading to protests and clashes with the authorities.
Machado has refused to explain her strategy to overcome the ban, only offering platitudes to supporters that she is in the race “until the end.”