Incumbent President Nicolás Maduro was sworn in for a controversial third term on January 10, after the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared he won Venezuela’s disputed July 28 elections without publishing results. A heavy presence of security forces and wave of arbitrary arrests in the days prior ensured the country’s streets were largely quiet.

Meanwhile, despite vowing to be inaugurated the same day, right-wing opposition candidate Edmundo González — who claims alleged voting centre tally sheets have him winning — remains outside the country since going into exile in September.

González spent the days leading up to January 10 visiting far-right Argentine President Javier Milei, outgoing conservative Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou and soon-to-depart United States President Joe Biden to bolster his international support.

González and far-right opposition leader María Corina Machado appear to be seeking to replicate the path they took in declaring former National Assembly president Juan Guaidó as “interim president” in 2019.

This earlier manoeuvre was used by foreign governments to justify handing Venezuela’s foreign assets to Guaidó’s “government”, as part of further strangling the country’s already sanction and crisis-ridden economy.

But, to date, much fewer countries in Europe and Latin America have recognised González as “president”, reflecting the previous initiative’s failure and the subsequent election of several centre-left and left presidents in the region.

For example, France and Brazil previously recognised Guaidó, but presidents Emmanuel Macron and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, respectively, have refused this time to recognise either candidate’s victory.

Instead, according to a French presidential office statement, the two spoke with Maduro on January 10 and offered “to facilitate the resumption of dialogue [with the opposition], with the aim of allowing the return of democracy and stability in Venezuela”.

In Venezuela’s neighbour, Colombia, Guaidó received strong support from far-right Colombian President Ivan Duque back in 2019. This time around, however, Duque’s backer and former far-right President Álvaro Uribe was reduced to staging a tiny protest gathering on the border.

Uribe’s call for a foreign military intervention into Venezuela was also roundly condemned by current Colombian left-wing President Gustavo Petro.

In a January 13 post on X, Petro noted that “time and again, the Colombian extreme right has violated [the right of self-determination], expecting and promoting wars,” adding that “an economic blockade of one country against another is abominable, and worse still a military invasion”.

Petro proposed that Colombia should instead “maintain diplomatic relations” with Venezuela, as “we seek a democratic dialogue in Colombia and Venezuela, we seek respect for the people”.

He clarified though that this was not the same as “seeking to legitimise elections that were not free from the start, when the agreement to lift economic sanctions so that the people could vote freely was violated … followed by the Venezuelan government taking away [Machado]’s right to stand and be elected…

“There were no free elections in Venezuela and there must be.”

Petro has criticised the lack of transparency regarding the election results on several occasions and spoken out against the arrest of Venezuelan progressives by the Maduro government.

In a January 9 post on X, Petro wrote: “Like our friend Enrique Márquez, a prominent Venezuelan progressive [who stood as a candidate in the presidential elections], Carlos Correa, a prominent human rights defender in Venezuela, has been arrested … We demand the release of all persons detained for political reasons.”

The two were among the 83 people detained for political reasons in the first 12 days of the year, according to NGO Foro Penal. Left-wing human rights collective Surgentes warns their arrests follow a dangerous, but increasingly common “pattern of forced disappearances” carried out by security forces “officials operating with their faces masked and without uniforms or marked vehicles”.

Márquez is a spokesperson for the Popular Democratic Front (FDP), a coalition of left-wing and moderate opposition groups campaigning for the election results to be published and the release of the more than 2000 people arrested for protesting in the days after the elections.

Other FDP leaders are now in hiding, including constitutional lawyer María Alejandra Díaz, who was already being persecuted for filing a legal recourse before the Supreme Court of Justice on behalf of the FDP, requesting it ask the CNE to publish the results.

Venezuela’s interior minister Diosdado Cabello accused Petro of supporting “delinquents” involved in a coup plot, to which Petro replied with a January 10 X post stating: “The [FDP] is not a criminal organisation and is a fraternal partner to Colombian progressive movements.”

This stance was inline with the position he took in support of Venezuelan progressives in his January 9 post, where he wrote: “Colombia will not break diplomatic relations with Venezuela, nor will it intervene in the internal affairs of that country, without invitation.

“But we ask, on the basis of our own struggle for human rights in Colombia, that they be respected for everyone in Venezuela.”

“The progressive forces of Colombia will maintain their relationship of collaboration and friendship with all progressive forces in Venezuela in search of a broad political and social dialogue that can bring peace to the whole region and prevent violence.

“The freedom of the people is the goal of any progressive force.”

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