Chavismo reinforces police and military presence in the streets of Caracas
President Nicolás Maduro has practically sealed off the capital against Edmundo González’s intention to take office on Friday as the next president of Venezuela
The images of the last week in Venezuela have become a familiar landscape: uniformed soldiers dressed for combat at the door of a government building, inspections with dogs of cars crossing the toll booths of the main highways, searches in the subway, on buses, on every street corner. Chavismo’s Big Brother has deployed all its presence ahead of the inauguration on Friday, when a president will be sworn into office in Venezuela. That is the factual data; what will happen exactly remains to be seen. The current president, Nicolás Maduro, has put the entire state apparatus to work for him in order to retain power for another six years, despite the more than unfounded suspicions that he committed electoral fraud on July 28, snatching victory from Edmundo González Urrutia, the opposition candidate who on Monday met with Joe Biden, the outgoing president of the United States, in the White House. González wants the United States to help him achieve the restoration of “democratic order” in Venezuela.
