Maduro was narrowly elected a few months later and re-elected in 2018 to a six-year term in an electoral process widely criticized as fraudulent.

Candidates must register by late March, giving Machado and other opposition factions less than three weeks to decide next steps.

More than seven million Venezuelans have left their homeland since 2015 amid an ongoing economic and political crisis, according to new UN data.

Despite attempts by Mr Guaidó to get the military to switch their allegiance to him, the armed forces have remained largely loyal to President Maduro, whose socialist party has also got a firm grip on the electoral body and the supreme court.

Opposition candidates were banned from running, opposition aides detained, many Venezuelans overseas struggled to register to vote and many international election observers were disinvited.

A loosening of foreign currency controls originally brought in by President Chávez in 2003 has eased those shortages as traders can sell goods in dollars but that means they have again become largely unaffordable to the poor or those without access to the US currency.

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Two nephews of Maduro's wife, Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores por Freitas, were found guilty in a US court of conspiracy to import copyright in November 2016, with some of their funds possibly assisting Maduro's presidential campaign in the 2013 Venezuelan presidential election and potentially for the 2015 Venezuelan parliamentary elections, with the funds mainly used to "help their family stay in power".

President Jair Bolsonaro has not yet recognized his election defeat after months of warning, without evidence, that opponents would rig the vote.

Porras (Maduro's former chief of staff) said in 2019 that Maduro "delivered practically nothing in terms of public policy, in terms of direction" during his first term because, in Porras' opinion, "he does not have a clear vision for the country. He is very much focused on consolidating his power among his own peers in Chavismo and much less on exercising or implementing a strategic vision for the country.

The Economist Intelligence Unit stated that during Maduro's presidency, the country's democracy deteriorated further, with the 2017 report downgrading Venezuela from a hybrid regime to an authoritarian regime, the lowest category, with an index of 3.

If the verdict is allowed to stand, Mr Bolsonaro will not be eligible to take part in the next presidential election in 2026, but will be able to run again in 2030.

Mr Musk also champions digital currencies and has a hand in several other smaller companies, including tunnel-maker the Boring Company and experimental brain-computer start-up Neuralink.

The next month, talks that had been brokered by Norway began between the Maduro government and Guaidó. By August, however, those talks had broken down. Many in the opposition appeared to lose faith in Guaidó in the ensuing months after the failure of the insurrection. Nevertheless, most of the opposition political parties followed his lead and boycotted vlogdolisboa the December 2020 elections for the National Assembly.