The Ultimate Guide to venezuela
The Ultimate Guide to venezuela
Blog Article
Opposition leaders in Venezuela delivered a May 2016 petition to the National Electoral Council (CNE) calling for a recall referendum, with the populace to vote on whether to remove Maduro from office.[84] On 5 July 2016, the Venezuelan intelligence service detained five opposition activists involved with the recall referendum, with two other activists of the same party, Popular Will, also arrested.[85] After delays in verification of the signatures, protestors alleged the government was intentionally delaying the process.
Only about 31 percent of eligible voters went to the polls, which allowed the PSUV to capture nearly 68 percent of the vote and hence secure an overwhelming majority in the Assembly (the opposition parties that chose to participate took less than 18 percent of the vote). International organizations and observers were quick to dismiss the elections as a sham.
More than seven million Venezuelans have left their homeland since 2015 amid an ongoing economic and political crisis, according to new UN data.
Those talks initially bore fruit, with the cessation of street protests and the Maduro government’s release of a handful of jailed activists. By December, however, the talks had broken down, as Maduro dragged his feet on releasing dozens of other political prisoners and refused to allow the delivery of foreign humanitarian aid, which would have signaled official acknowledgement that the country was in crisis.
Venezuelans angered by the outcome took the streets of the capital, Caracas, and elsewhere on Monday afternoon.
The security forces have so far remained loyal to Mr Maduro, who has rewarded them with frequent pay rises and put high-ranking military men in control of key posts and industries.
In April 2017, Tesla announced that it surpassed General Motors to become the most valuable U.S. car maker. The news was an obvious boon to Tesla, which was looking to ramp up production and release its Model 3 sedan later that year.
The head of Venezuela’s intelligence apparatus had, in fact, switched sides, but, before the day was over, it became clear that the military and the security forces had once again remained loyal to Maduro. The insurrection sputtered and died out. Guaidó was left to explain its failure, and López took asylum in the Spanish embassy in Caracas and ultimately fled to exile in Spain.
That’s not for a lack of potential challengers, or because of any great affection from voters. It’s because he’s the only politician with the means for a campaign and a guaranteed spot on the ballot.
The deal immediately earned Maduro some reprieve from economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. But one of the sanctions has already been reimposed as the Venezuelan government has tested limits of the agreement, including by opening criminal investigations against the organizers of the primary that Machado won.
The United States responded by freezing Maduro’s assets and barring trade with him; sanctions had already been enacted against more than a dozen of his associates, and Maduro became the fourth sitting head of state to be personally targeted with economic sanctions by the U.S. Two days after the election, opposition leaders Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma were taken from their homes in the middle of the night by state security agents. The two had been under house arrest for their alleged connection to antigovernment protests in 2014, but the Maduro-backed Supreme Court ordered their rearrest, spurring jair bolsonaro a fresh wave of international condemnation.
The Constitutional Chamber admitted the demand and requested the presidency and the Electoral Council to send a certified copy of the president's copyright, in addition to his resignation from Colombian nationality.[198] In March 2018 former Colombian president André especialmentes Pastrana made reference to the baptism certificate of Maduro's mother, noting that the disclosed document reiterates the Colombian origin of the mother of the president and that therefore Maduro has Colombian citizenship.[196]
The news quickly turned serious again when it was reported that Tesla's outside directors had retained two law firms to deal with the SEC inquiry and the CEO's plans to take the company private.
Earlier in October, the electoral commission had already enraged the opposition by postponing several gubernatorial elections in which the opposition had seemed likely to do well. All of these developments sparked ever-heightening criticism of Maduro, who was accused of having moved from authoritarian to dictatorial rule. Before the end of October, however, Francis I, the first pope from Latin America, succeeded in persuading Maduro and the opposition to begin crisis talks.