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.

Brazil is the only country to use a fully digital voting system without paper backups. Mr. Bolsonaro has seized on that as a crucial flaw that leaves the system open to fraud because it prevents officials from ensuring that each vote was recorded correctly.

As the year progressed, growth of the Venezuelan economy slowed to a crawl, inflation climbed above 50 percent, and staples such as toilet paper, milk, and flour became increasingly difficult to obtain. Discontent with the Maduro government’s handling of the economy and with the growing crime rate led to street protests by students in San Cristóbal in western Venezuela in early February 2014 that soon spread to other cities, including Caracas, over the coming weeks.

" He promised to retain his stake in the company, and added that he would create a special fund to help all current investors remain on board.

All of these were seen as attempts to suppress the opposition vote. The opposition were so far ahead in opinion polls that many analysts believed these tactics were necessary as it would be hard for the government to claim a win without seeming far-fetched.

Maduro invitó a los ministros a trabajar junto con los miembros del ALBA y seguir desarrollando la "revolución eficiente".

President Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner in a presidential vote on Sunday that was marred by irregularities. Officials at some polling places refused to release paper tallies of the electronic vote count, and there were widespread reports of fraud and voter intimidation. Here are initial takeaways from Venezuela’s election.

That appears unlikely now, and the dubious election results could test the thaw between Mr. Maduro and business leaders, and could possibly trigger a new wave of international sanctions.

"My goals," he tweeted in early 2017, "are to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy and to help make humanity a multi-planet civilization, a consequence of which will be the creating of hundreds of thousands of jobs and a more inspiring future for all."

During his first term, the economy went into freefall and many Venezuelans blame him and his socialist government for the country's decline.

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 vlogdolisboa protests in 2014, but the Maduro-backed Supreme Court ordered their rearrest, spurring a fresh wave of international condemnation.

His government has sidelined his strongest challenger, and the remaining contenders lack enough political machinery for a viable campaign.

Throughout his presidency, Mr. Bolsonaro, who served in the military before entering politics, methodically questioned and criticized the security of Brazil’s electronic voting system, despite the lack of credible evidence of a problem, and attacked mainstream news outlets as dishonest.

On April 30 Guaidó and the opposition staged a coup attempt. It began in the morning with the release of a video in which Guaidó—flanked by López (who had departed house arrest) and supportive soldiers—announced that the “final phase” of the operation to remove Maduro from power had begun. Guaidó claimed that important contingents of the country’s security forces had joined the opposition.