Venezuela’s Maduro takes new oath amid protests and international rebuke

On Friday, she posted a video online in which she described the confusing incident. She said national guardsmen fired shots on her convoy then dragged her off a motorcycle from behind and said they were taking her to prison. She said her motorcycle driver was shot in the leg.

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

Maduro’s 2018 reelection was widely rejected as a sham after authorities banned key opponents from running. And Venezuela’s opposition faction accuse him of outright ballot fraud last year.

Outside Friday’s inauguration ceremony, Maduro’s supporters were overjoyed. One of them was Maricarmen Ruiz, 18, who couldn’t hold back her tears.

Global condemnation over the lack of transparency prompted Maduro to ask the country’s high court — which like every other institution in Venezuela is packed with loyalists — to audit the results. As expected, the court reaffirmed Maduro’s victory.

“Today Maduro didn’t put the sash on his chest. He put a shackle on his ankle, which will tighten every day,” Machado said Friday.

On Tuesday, González said his son-in-law had been kidnapped in Caracas by masked gunmen while taking his young children to school. González’s daughter, Mariana González de Tudares, in a statement accused the government of ordering her husband’s disappearance.

The dispute over the results sparked nationwide protests. The government responded with full force, arresting more than 2,000 demonstrators and encouraging Venezuelans to report anyone they suspect to be a ruling-party adversary. More than 20 people were killed during the unrest. Dozens of foreigners — including as many as 10 Americans — were also rounded up.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was sworn in Friday for a new term, extending his increasingly repressive rule in the face of renewed protests and rebukes from the United States and others who believe he stole last year’s vote.

The Biden administration, citing Venezuela’s “severe humanitarian emergency,” also extended for 18 months a special permission allowing 600,000 Venezuelan migrants to stay in the U.S. It also upped to $25 million a reward for the arrest of Maduro and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello to face drug trafficking charges in the U.S., and placed a new bounty of $15 million on Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.

Venezuela’s legislative palace, where he was sworn in and delivered a fiery speech, was heavily guarded by security forces who have become Maduro’s main hold on power since last summer’s disputed election. Crowds of people, many sporting pro-Maduro T-shirts, gathered in adjacent streets and a nearby plaza.

The backslapping among government insiders in downtown Caracas on Friday contrasted sharply with the hundreds of Venezuelans who took to the streets Thursday to protest Maduro’s power grab.

The protest took place in relative calm but after it ended, aides to the popular former lawmaker María Corina Machado — the driving force behind what’s left of Venezuela’s beleaguered opposition — said she was briefly detained by security forces. Machado, whom the government has barred from running for office, emerged from months of hiding to join the rally against Maduro.

Maduro, likening himself to a biblical David fighting Goliath, accused his opponents and their supporters in the U.S. of trying to turn his inauguration into a “world war.” He said his enemies’ failure to block his inauguration to a third six-year term was “a great victory” for Venezuela’s peace and national sovereignty.

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