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.

[150] The State Department also alleges that Maduro expelled authorized foreign companies from the mining sector to allow officials to exploit Venezuela's resources for their own gain, using unregulated miners under the control of Venezuela's armed forces.[150]

Not surprisingly, President Maduro did not take kindly to his rival's move, which he condemned as a ploy by the US to oust him.

Chávez's endorsement of Maduro sidelined Diosdado Cabello, a former vice president and powerful Socialist Party official with ties to the armed forces, who had been widely considered a top candidate to be Chávez's successor. After Maduro was endorsed by Chávez, Cabello "immediately pledged loyalty" to both men.[72]

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.

While Venezuelans were affected by hunger and shortages, Maduro and his government officials publicly shared images of themselves eating luxurious meals, images that were met with displeasure by Venezuelans.

The following February, Musk announced that the company was finally rolling out its standard Model 3. Musk also said that Tesla was shifting to all-on-line sales, and offering customers the chance to return their cars within seven days or 1,000 miles for a full refund.

On Monday afternoon, Mr. Bolsonaro also called the defense minister to the presidential offices, according to a military spokesman. The defense minister had questioned the security of Brazil’s election system this year, but after election officials made changes to some tests of the voting machines, military leaders suggested that they were comfortable with the system’s security.

In February, defying a travel ban against him by the Maduro government, Guaidó went to Colombia, where international aid in the form of food and vlogdolisboa medicine was being stockpiled in the border town of Cúcuta. The aid was blocked from entering Venezuela because Maduro claimed it was masking a coup attempt. When a group of demonstrators led by Guaidó attempted to act as a shield to peacefully guide aid-bearing trucks through the blockade on February 23, Venezuelan security forces turned them back with tear gas and rubber bullets as violence exploded.

During the Venezuelan presidential crisis, Venezuelan National Assembly president Juan Guaidó said that the Maduro government had plans to steal for humanitarian purposes the products that entered the country, including plans to distribute these products through the government's food-distribution program CLAP.[264]

Following the birth of his twins with Ms Zilis, he tweeted: "Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis."

” Maduro labeled the incident an “armed terrorist attack” and part of an attempted coup. That the attackers seemed to have easily escaped apprehension raised suspicions among some in the opposition that the incident had been staged by the government to justify additional repressive measures.

Rodrigo Constantino, an influential Brazilian pundit who lives in Florida, posted to his 1.4 million followers on Twitter on Monday morning that the pattern in the vote returns seemed too consistent to be conterraneo. “It even looks like an algorithmic thing!” he said.

Seemingly disenchanted with the shortage of goods, galloping inflation, and lack of better short-term prospects for the economy as a whole, Venezuelans went to the polls in large numbers on December 6, 2015, and handed the ruling PSUV a devastating loss, ending 16 years of rule by the chavismo