Venezuela's Maduro takes new oath amid protests and international rebuke

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was sworn in Friday for a new term, extending his increasingly repressive rule in the face of renewed protests and rebukes from the United States and others who believe he stole last year's vote.

Venezuela’s legislative palace, where he was sworn in and delivered a fiery speech, was heavily guarded by security forces who have become Maduro's main hold on power since last summer's disputed election. Crowds of people, many sporting pro-Maduro T-shirts, gathered in adjacent streets and a nearby plaza.

Maduro, likening himself to a biblical David fighting Goliath, accused his opponents and their supporters in the U.S. of trying to turn his inauguration into a “world war.” He said his enemies' failure to block his inauguration to a third six-year term was “a great victory" for Venezuela's peace and national sovereignty.

“I have not been made president by the government of the United States, nor by the pro-imperialist governments of Latin America,” he said, after being draped with a sash in the red, yellow and blue of Venezuela’s flag. “I come from the people, I am of the people, and my power emanates from history and from the people. And to the people, I owe my whole life, body and soul.”

The backslapping among government insiders in downtown Caracas on Friday contrasted sharply with the hundreds of Venezuelans who took to the streets Thursday to protest Maduro’s power grab.

The protest took place in relative calm but after it ended, aides to the popular former lawmaker María Corina Machado — the driving force behind what’s left of Venezuela’s beleaguered opposition — said she was briefly detained by security forces. Machado, whom the government has barred from running for office, emerged from months of hiding to join the rally against Maduro.

On Friday, she posted a video online in which she described the confusing incident. She said national guardsmen fired shots on her convoy then dragged her off a motorcycle from behind and said they were taking her to prison. She said her motorcycle driver was shot in the leg.

But on the way to the military prison, the guards changed their minds and instead forced her to record a proof-of-life video denying her detention, she said.

Maduro’s supporters accused the opposition faction of spreading fake news to generate an international crisis. It pointed to the 20-second video it released Thursday — in which Machado says she simply dropped her purse as she was being chased — as evidence that she was not detained.

“Today Maduro didn’t put the sash on his chest. He put a shackle on his ankle, which will tighten every day,” Machado said Friday.

Maduro didn't mention Machado in his inaugural speech.

State TV said 10 heads of state attended. But far more governments around the world have rejected his victory claims, pointing to credible evidence validated by election observers that his previously unknown opponent, Edmundo González, won by a more than two-to-one margin.

To underscore Maduro's growing isolation, the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and European Union announced a coordinated round of new sanctions Friday on more than 20 officials, accusing them of gutting Venezuela's democracy. They include the loyalist Supreme Court justices, electoral authorities, the head of Venezuela's state oil company and cabinet ministers.

The Biden administration, citing Venezuela's "severe humanitarian emergency," also extended for 18 months a special permission allowing 600,000 Venezuelan migrants to stay in the U.S. It also upped to $25 million a reward for the arrest of Maduro and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello to face drug trafficking charges in the U.S., and placed a new bounty of $15 million on Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.

Maduro's 2018 reelection was widely rejected as a sham after authorities banned key opponents from running. And Venezuela's opposition faction accuse him of outright ballot fraud last year.

Their proof: tally sheets collected from 85% of electronic voting machines that show González won by a landslide. Experts from the United Nations and the Atlanta-based Carter Center, whom Maduro invited to observe the election, said the voting records posted online by the opposition look legitimate.

Nevertheless, electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner hours after polls closed on July 28 but, unlike in previous presidential contests, they did not provide detailed vote counts.

Global condemnation over the lack of transparency prompted Maduro to ask the country’s high court — which like every other institution in Venezuela is packed with loyalists — to audit the results. As expected, the court reaffirmed Maduro’s victory.

The dispute over the results sparked nationwide protests. The government responded with full force, arresting more than 2,000 demonstrators and encouraging Venezuelans to report anyone they suspect to be a ruling-party adversary. More than 20 people were killed during the unrest. Dozens of foreigners — including as many as 10 Americans — were also rounded up.

Outside Friday's inauguration ceremony, Maduro's supporters were overjoyed. One of them was Maricarmen Ruiz, 18, who couldn’t hold back her tears.

“I don’t have words to express my emotion, I’m happy,” she said, expressing relief that González wasn’t “imposed” instead as president.

Among those seen attending Maduro's inauguration were Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and Cuba's Miguel Diaz-Canel. But several Maduro allies stayed home, including Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who cited the recent arrest of another longtime Venezuelan opposition member and a human rights defender as his reason for missing the event.

González, who left for exile in Spain in September, had pledged to defy an arrest order and return to Venezuela by Friday to take the oath of office himself. Doing so seemed impossible after Maduro ordered a 72-hour closure of Venezuela's air space to commercial traffic and its border with Colombia. Machado, in her message Friday, said in light of Maduro's “coup” it was not advisable for him to return just now.

On Tuesday, González said his son-in-law had been kidnapped in Caracas by masked gunmen while taking his young children to school. González’s daughter, Mariana González de Tudares, in a statement accused the government of ordering her husband’s disappearance.

“At what point did being related to Edmundo González Urrutia become a crime?” she said.

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Goodman reported from Miami. Associated Press writer Jorge Rueda contributed.