By: Staff Writer
January 10, 2025
Venezuela is set to inaugurate Nicolas Maduro today after winning 52 percent of the July 28, 2024 presidential elections that were marred in controversy and violence.
Maduro’s challenger, Edmundo González Urrutia, who had been in exile in Spain since September, is determined to return to the capital Caracas by January 10 to take office, even under the threat of arrest by Venezuelan authorities.
González is said to have won 67 percent of the vote on July 28 to Maduro’s 30 percent, as reported by Comando Con Venezuela, a political action committee with ties to former opposition candidate, María Corina Machado, who González had replaced on the ballot.
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, a body stacked with Maduro allies, formally declared Maduro the winner without providing voting tallies.
The opposition disputed the claim and released tens of thousands of tallies gathered from across the country, saying they proved González won by a landslide.
Maduro’s feared interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, warned Gonzalez that he will be arrested if he tries to return home to protest the inauguration. “Come! We’re waiting for you!” he goaded González on Monday.
Cabello insisted the start of Maduro’s third six-year term would not be derailed and scotched suggestions the military would switch sides – something the opposition is urging it to do. “The barracks are calm,” claimed Cabello, who has ordered a major deployment of security forces to quell dissent.
Meanwhile, Machado was freed on Thursday, her Vente Venezuela movement said, shortly after she was detained amid gunshots while leaving a protest in eastern Caracas.
Opposition demonstrations took place throughout the country in an eleventh-hour effort to put pressure on President Nicolas Maduro ahead of his third inauguration on Friday.
Machado was detained after making her first public appearance in months, prompting her ally, former presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, to demand she be freed immediately. Several governments also condemned the incident.
Tensions are still high in Venezuela, leaving onlookers concerned about the future of the oil rich Latin American nation.
Maduro loyalists claim this post-election disruption is as a result of United States meddling and that they will continue on with the Bolivarian policies of former president, the late Hugo Chavez.
They also claim that the Venezuelan resistance is taking place in a context of constant aggressions by the United States and its allies. The more than 950 illegal sanctions imposed against the country have drastically reduced national income, causing a devastating impact in key areas such as health, education and public services. These measures seek to weaken the Bolivarian Revolution, generate despair among the population and encourage a regime change favorable to imperialist interests.