CIVICUS discusses the expectations of Venezuelan civil society following Nicolás Maduro’s inauguration with Carlos Torrealba, a Venezuelan academic and researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
In the months leading up to Nicolás Maduro’s inauguration for his third presidential term in January 2025, his government intensified repression, rejecting his defeat in the July election. While some still hoped that the legitimately elected president, Edmundo González Urrutia, could take office, the regime launched a preventive wave of what the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights denounced as state terrorism; the body has documented 25 murders, some 2,000 arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances and torture and cruel treatment of detainees. Between August and December, the authorities arrested at least 56 opposition activists, 10 journalists and one human rights defender, while deploying an unprecedented military and police presence.