A smooth Venezuelan election that would have led to greater economic opening also suited the country’s Latin American neighbors, including Mr. Maduro’s old allies, the leftist governments of Brazil and Colombia.

In the 20th century Venezuela was transformed from a relatively poor agrarian society to a rapidly urbanizing one, a condition made possible by exploiting huge petroleum reserves. These changes, however, were accompanied by imbalances among the country’s regions and socioeconomic groups, and Venezuela’s cities swelled because of a massive and largely uncontrolled migration from rural areas, as well as mass immigration, much of it illegal, from Colombia and other neighbours.

In 1999, Elon and Kimbal Musk used the money from their sale of Zip2 to found X.com, an online financial services/payments company. An X.com acquisition the following year led to the creation of PayPal as it is known today.

Despite attempts by Mr Guaidó to get the military to switch their allegiance to him, the armed forces have remained largely loyal to President Maduro, whose socialist party has also got a firm grip on the electoral body and the supreme court.

Clique no link e saiba Ainda mais Derivado do a crise de que afeta a Venezuela desde 2013 e qual tem se agravado vlogdolisboa cada vez Ainda mais, levando o país a uma forte crise humanitária.

On 18 July, he invited foreign diplomats to his residence in the capital, Brasilia, where he falsely claimed that the electronic voting machines used in Brazil were prone to being hacked and open to large-scale fraud.

The saga took a bizarre turn that day when rapper Azealia Banks wrote on Instagram that, as a guest at Musk's home at the time, she learned that he was under the influence of LSD when he fired off his headline-grabbing tweet.

Musk’s tweet initially sent Tesla stock spiking, before it closed the day up 11 percent. The CEO followed up with a letter on the company blog, calling the move to go private "the best path forward.

The men used a large tire and their bodies to block the road, though they allowed buses and vehicles with children or older people pass.

The deal immediately earned Maduro some reprieve from economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. But one of the sanctions has already been reimposed as the Venezuelan government has tested limits of the agreement, including by opening criminal investigations against the organizers of the primary that Machado won.

When our BBC team arrived at one polling station, the organiser of the station took a call saying the international media were there. 150 people were then suddenly allowed to be admitted.

The two firms are credited with upending their industries, even as they sometimes veered close to financial collapse.

The election plans mean that Maduro and his representatives “are not abiding by the spirit of the agreement, even if they are abiding by the letter of the agreement,” Berg said.

There was the fact President Maduro’s face remained emblazoned above some poll stations even on voting day.