Venezuelan President Maduro is sworn in again despite serious doubts about the election result

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) —

President Nicolás Maduro will extend his increasingly repressive rule over Venezuela until 2031, when he will be sworn in on Friday, despite credible evidence that his opponent won the last election and after protests against his plan to serve a third six-year term.

On Thursday, as hundreds of anti-Maduro protesters took to the streets of the capital Caracas, aides to the opposition leader María Corina Machado said she was briefly detained by security forces and forced to record videos.

The popular former lawmaker, who has been barred by the government from running for office, had come out of months in hiding to attend the rally to demand that opposition candidate Edmundo González be sworn in as president instead of Maduro.

Machado addressed the rally and then left on a motorcycle with his security convoy. Machado’s press team later announced on social media that security forces “violently intercepted” her convoy. Her aides then confirmed to the Associated Press that the opposition hardliner had been detained.

Leaders in America and Europe condemned the government for suppressing opposition voices and demanded her release. US President-elect Donald Trump expressed his support for Machado and González.

“These freedom fighters should not be harmed and MUST remain SAFE and ALIVE!” Trump said on Truth Social.

Maduro’s supporters denied that Machado was arrested and said government opponents were spreading fake news to create an international crisis.

The brouhaha preceding Maduro’s inauguration adds to the litany of allegations of electoral fraud and brutal repression to silence dissent.

Electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner hours after polls closed on July 28, but unlike previous presidential elections, they did not provide detailed vote counts. The opposition, meanwhile, has collected summary sheets from more than 80% of electronic voting machines, put them online and said the tallies show that González won twice as many votes as Maduro.

Global condemnation over lack of transparency prompted Maduro to ask the country’s Supreme Court – also packed with allies from his United Socialist Party of Venezuela – to review the election results. The court confirmed Maduro’s victory without providing thorough evidence and called on the Electoral Council to release vote tallies. But neither the council nor the ruling party provided evidence that Maduro had won, even though their election center representatives were also entitled to tally slips from each voting machine.

The US-based Carter Center, which observed the election at the government’s invitation, it declared figures published by the opposition legitimate. Other election experts, whom the government allowed to witness the vote, said opinion polls published online by the opposition faction appeared to exhibit all the original security features.

The controversy over the results prompted international outrage and nationwide protests. The the government replied in full force, arresting more than 2,000 protesters and urging Venezuelans to report anyone they suspect of being opposed to the ruling party. More than 20 people were killed during the unrest, and many protesters reported being tortured in custody.

It is unclear whether any heads of state planned to attend Friday’s inauguration ceremony hosted by the ruling party-controlled National Assembly at the Legislative Palace in Caracas.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petroa close Maduro ally, said he would skip the event, citing the detentions earlier this week of another longtime Venezuelan opposition member and a human rights activist.

Maduro’s last inauguration, in 2019, was attended by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and then-Bolivian President Evo Morales. The 2018 election was widely seen as a sham after his government banned major opposition parties from participating.

And it remains unclear about González who traveled to exile in Spain in September, will fulfill his promise to return to Venezuela on Friday.

Government officials have repeatedly threatened González with arrest should he set foot on Venezuelan soil. On Tuesday, González had his say son-in-law Rafael Tudares had been kidnapped in Caracas. González’s daughter, Mariana González de Tudares, suggested in a statement that the government was behind her husband’s disappearance.

“At what point did it become a crime to be related to Edmundo González Urrutia?” she said.