Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, will be sworn in as president for a record third term on January 10, four months after being declared the winner of the country’s highly contentious election. Maduro will receive the standard obeisance from his cronies and will hug the limelight, but plenty of Venezuelans will have very little to celebrate.
Both Maduro and opposition leader María Corina Machado, who is currently in hiding, have urged their supporters on to the streets on inauguration day. In a video message released on January 5, Machado said that Maduro will not step down on his own and that the Venezuelan people “must make him leave”.
Since Maduro assumed office in 2013, nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country. Once proud and rich citizens of one of the most successful economies in Latin America, these refugees and migrants have been forced out of their homes due to grave political and economic mismanagement. Meanwhile, millions of others, too afraid or unable to flee, silently endure grinding socioeconomic instability and violent political persecution.
