Nicolás Maduro has now been in power in Venezuela since 2013 – gradually usurping power over the past twelve years until becoming a full dictator. But how did we get here? The answer is: A process of election fraud, crackdown on any opposition, deep state militarisation and wider human rights abuses. It’s meant that the Venezuelan people have suffered incredibly – and likely will continue to suffer as he begins yet another term this week.
Maduro first became president on an interim basis in 2013, after the death of Hugo Chávez, who had designated him as his successor. That same year, he narrowly won a special election, denounced by the opposition and many commentators. The opposition candidate Henrique Capriles at the time faced relentless persecution by the government after asking for a full review of the results – a case which he took to the Inter American Court of Human Rights and won last December (eleven years on).
But here’s how Maduro continued to entrench his power further over the years. In the 2015 parliamentary elections, the opposition won a majority in the Legislative Assembly, but Maduro's government refused to recognise it and stripped it of its legislative powers, creating an ad-hoc body controlled by the ruling party.
