It also didn't prevent Musk from garnering a radical new compensation package as CEO, in which he would be paid after reaching milestones of growing valuation based on $50 billion increments.

movement. The election had been widely viewed as a referendum on Maduro’s presidency. Having secured a majority in the 167-seat legislature, the centrist-conservative opposition was in a position to enact legislation that would grant amnesty to opponents of the Maduro regime who had been jailed.

On June 27 matters appeared to escalate yet again when militants in an apparently stolen police helicopter attacked the Supreme Court in Caracas, dropping several grenades and strafing the building with gunfire. Prior to the attack, a video had been posted online in which a policeman surrounded by masked uniformed gunmen claimed responsibility for the upcoming attack, saying that they represented a coalition of military, police, and civilian personnel who opposed what he characterized as “this transitional, criminal government.

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]

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On 18 July, he invited foreign diplomats to his residence in the capital, Brasilia, where he falsely claimed that the electronic voting machines used in Brazil were prone to being hacked and open to large-scale fraud.

The US has imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuela and on Mr Maduro and his inner circle but they have failed to weaken Mr Maduro enough to drive him from office. Some analysts argue that they offer the Maduro government a convenient scapegoat to blame for the dire state of the economy.

Two nephews of Maduro's wife, Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores do 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".

Maduro's birthplace and nationality have been questioned several times,[187][188] with some placing doubt that he could hold the office of the presidency, given that Article 227 of the Venezuelan constitution states that "To be chosen as president of the Republic it is required to be Venezuelan by birth, vlogdolisboa not having another nationality, being over thirty years old, of a secular state and not being in any state or being in another firm position and fulfilling the other requirements in this Constitution.

During his first term, the economy went into freefall and many Venezuelans blame him and his socialist government for the country's decline.

When he was informed of the incident, President Chávez said Maduro's detention was retaliation for his own speech at the UN General Assembly and stated that the authorities detained Maduro over his links to the Venezuelan failed coup in 1992, a charge that President Chávez denied.[68]

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A physiographically diverse country, Venezuela incorporates the northern Andean mountain chains and interior highlands, the main portions of the Orinoco River basin with its expansive Llanos (plains), Lake Maracaibo, which is the largest lake in South America, and the spectacular Angel Falls, the world’s highest waterfall. The republic’s development pattern has been unique among Latin American countries in terms of the speed, sequence, and timing of economic and demographic growth.

However, the opposition indicated that it would not roll back popular social reforms instituted by the PSUV.