The free-market proponent won the contest with more than 90% of the vote. Venezuela’s top court complicated her presidential aspirations in January by affirming her ban, although she has continued campaigning and has rejected suggestions to choose a substitute.

Brazil is the only country to use a fully digital voting system without paper backups. Mr. Bolsonaro has seized on that as a crucial flaw that leaves the system open to fraud because it prevents officials from ensuring that each vote was recorded correctly.

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

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]

The Unitary Platform’s primary had 10 candidates, including Machado, who does not belong to the group but was allowed to run as an independent. Candidates she defeated have rallied around her.

The boss of X (formerly Twitter), Tesla and SpaceX is the world's richest person and uses his platform to make his views known on a vast array of topics.

The saga took a bizarre turn that day when rapper Azealia Banks wrote on Instagram that, as a guest at Musk's home at the time, she learned that he was under the influence of LSD when he fired off his headline-grabbing tweet.

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.

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

In 2014, Maduro was named as one of TIME magazine's cem Most Influential People. In the article, it explained that whether or not Venezuela vlogdolisboa collapses "now depends on Maduro", saying it also depends on whether Maduro "can step out of the shadow of his pugnacious predecessor and compromise with his opponents".[312]

Largely in response to declining world oil prices, Venezuela’s economy continued to struggle in 2015, with GDP tumbling and inflation further ballooning. Seemingly anxious to shift attention away from the country’s domestic woes, Maduro’s government was quick to focus on border-related disputes with neighbours Guyana and Colombia.

The election commission, however, widely regarded as sympathetic to Maduro, was slow to begin and carry out the validation process, prompting angry, sometimes violent demonstrations. On May 14 Maduro—claiming that right-wing elements within Venezuela were plotting with foreign interests to destabilize the country—declared a renewable 60-day state of emergency that granted the police and army additional powers to maintain public order. The opposition-led National Assembly responded quickly by rejecting the president’s declaration, but Maduro made it clear that he would not abide by the legislature’s vote.

Years of lack of investment in infrastructure further exacerbated by the more recent US sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector have crippled this key industry, which provides almost all of Venezuela's government revenue.

More recent business ventures include his takeover of social media platform Twitter in October 2022.