(Bloomberg) -- In a show of brute force, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro has once again backed his rivals into a corner.
The strongman closed airways and land crossings through neighboring Colombia to prevent Edmundo González from entering the country to disrupt his inauguration Friday. That, along with a dramatic ramp up in repression, has sent his challengers scattered and reeling.
“Today, Maduro officially violated the constitution,” María Corina Machado, the popular opposition leader who was briefly detained yesterday, said in a video posted on social media in the afternoon. She called on Venezuelans to take to the street to protest.
“As of today, the pressure will only increase on Maduro,” she said. “We must do whatever it takes to reinstate our rights.”
Her stand-in candidate González, who showed proof that he obtained nearly 70% of the vote last year, will come to Venezuela to be sworn in “when conditions are right,” she said. Maduro’s regime previously threatened to shoot down his plane or arrest him upon entering the country.
Maduro was declared, without evidence, to be the winner of last July’s vote by an electoral authority stacked with his appointees. The 62-year-old took the presidential oath for his third six-year term in Caracas on Friday in the absence of once-close allies such as Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, highlighting just how isolated the strongman has become in the dark aftermath of the election.
The US immediately ratcheted up pressure on the regime, increasing a reward for Maduro’s arrest on narcotics charges and imposing new sanctions on his officials. The European Union and the UK government made similar moves.
“Machado and the opposition feel emboldened by what has happened in the last two days precisely because of the regime’s continuing loss of legitimacy both at home and abroad,” said Ian Vásquez, vice president for international studies at Washington’s Cato Institute. This week’s events will only “help push the international community, including key countries like Brazil, to take a stronger stance against the regime and isolate it further.”
Maduro began his 2025 to 2031 presidential term after a ceremony at the National Assembly in downtown Caracas. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel was in attendance, as was a representative of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega and a special envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived to applause part way through the proceedings.
“Today we can say the constitution has won and Venezuela is in peace,” Maduro declared. “Neither the US nor the oligarchy of surnames has made me president of Venezuela, I owe it to the people.”
Months of intimidation have forced Maduro’s most prominent opponents to choose whether to compromise their safety to challenge his rule. González later fled to Spain under threat of arrest.
Since the election, Maduro has jailed thousands of his critics and purged what’s left of the opposition from the country. An estimated 100 opposition leaders and many more activists from the Unitary Platform have fled the country since late July. At least 25 arrest warrants against opposition leaders were issued in the first month after the election. Dozens of passports were canceled.
Tensions reached a new high on Thursday when aides to Machado said she was detained for about two hours after making her first public appearance in months. Machado overwhelmingly won the 2023 opposition primary but was barred from running.
In her Friday address, she described how armed officers violently intercepted her after the rally and put her onto another motorcycle. She said one of her drivers was shot and jailed, and that officers forced her to record a video as proof of life.
The government’s behavior “is currently extremely hostile to any form of dissidence,” said Guillermo Aveledo, a political studies professor at Caracas’ Metropolitan University. “The challenge is how to use this weakness as a starting point to empower the discontent expressed by society in the recent elections.”
Though Machado was set free, the encounter rattled supporters because the Maduro regime has been cracking down with renewed vigor on opponents. At least two dozen opposition officials and human rights activists have been detained since the start of the year, including a relative of González and Enrique Márquez, a harsh critic of Maduro’s policies and former vice president of the opposition-led National Assembly.
The intimidation campaign may be Maduro’s attempt to show strength, but it can also be viewed as a sign of vulnerability, said Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at Washington’s Atlantic Council. Hard-liners in his government have gained ground, and those favoring some type of agreement with Washington have weakened.
“Maduro does not feel safe at all at this moment,” Ramsey said.
Joe Biden’s administration had already responded to Maduro’s repression with new sanctions, and the US president met with González earlier this week. His successor Donald Trump made clear for the first time Thursday that he supports Machado and González, referring to the latter as “president-elect.”
The latest batch of US measures include sanctions on the head of the state oil firm Petróleos de Venezuela. The reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest, as well as that of his security chief, Diosdado Cabello, was increased to $25 million, and a new $15 million reward was issued for Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López.
Earlier Friday, Tachira Governor Freddy Bernal said Venezuela would close its border with Colombia for 24 hours due to an “international conspiracy.”
Maduro echoed that theme in his speech. “They are unhinged in the north,” he said. “The presidents of the extreme right are drooling with hatred and believe that the Venezuelan people are going to let them impose a president.”
Colombia’s Petro, Maduro’s most frequent visitor among world leaders in recent years, said this week he would skip Friday’s inauguration, citing recent arrests. Despite their close ties, Brazil’s Lula has called for Maduro to release the ballots to prove his supposed victory.
Ramsey pointed to the exaggerated response of Venezuelan security forces to Thursday’s protests as a sign of how threatened Maduro feels. “It’s easy to overestimate Maduro’s strength at this point, but he’s asking a lot of the military and security forces.”
Still, Maduro is a survivor who has weathered catastrophic economic conditions and ostracism from much of the Western world. This week alone he showed his playbook for keeping the population in check even though it voted overwhelmingly against him.
The regime offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to González’s capture, publishing his photo on wanted posters it distributed on social media and across the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. Heavily armed security forces and pro-government motorcycle gangs known as colectivos were also deployed among major cities.
In a video posted on social media late Friday, González called for Venezuela’s security forces to stop the repression and ensure conditions for his safe return.
“I am ready for my safe return to Venezuela, at the right time,” González said. “We are coordinating all indispensable factors to guarantee a near return to freedom.”
During Thursday’s protests, regime forces dressed in riot gear used tear gas to try to disperse the crowds in Caracas, Maracaibo and Valencia. Crowds waved the flag, honked horns and blew whistles, with some shouting, “This government is going to fall.”
Trump praised demonstrators against the regime in his social-media post Thursday, calling for Machado and González to remain “safe and alive.” His comments — and his hawkish cabinet choices — suggest he could take as hard a line as he did against Maduro during his first term.
But after winning the US election on a platform of deporting undocumented migrants, Trump may also be tempted to cut a deal with Maduro in exchange for accepting planes full of Venezuelans who made their way north. Maduro, on the other hand, has repeatedly said he expects Trump’s presidency to improve relations between the two countries.
Venezuelan bonds have been rising along other high-yield credits, touching their highest levels since August this week, with sovereign notes maturing in 2027 trading above 17 cents, according to traders and indicative pricing data compiled by Bloomberg. Some analysts like Barclays economist Alejandro Arreaza say investors are turning to the trade just to have the “optionality” of a potential catalyst ahead that could trigger regime change.
Even if the US refuses to recognize Maduro’s presidency, the once-fervent opposition is a shell of its former self, making its effort to pry him from power look less and less attainable.
Venezuela will hold parliamentary and regional elections for governors, mayors and other lawmakers due later this year, giving Maduro a way to further solidify his grip on the country for years to come.
“Rarely in Venezuela’s recent history has there been such a gap between the status quo and the people’s will,” said Metropolitan University’s Aveledo. “Currently there is no political offer from those in power that presents a viable solution to that reality.”
(Updates with comments from analysts, González starting in the 8th paragraph.)
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