Sawt Falasteen - Globally ostracized, Venezuela's Maduro takes third presidential oath

The ceremony comes a day after thousands took to the streets to protest his alleged power grab, with opposition leader Maria Corina Machado briefly held by security forces, according to her team.

Critics have reported a fresh wave of repression in the lead-up to Friday, with several activists and opposition figures arrested in recent days -- prompting the UN to express alarm.

Just Thursday, at least 17 protesters were detained, according to a post on X by Gonzalo Himiob of the NGO Foro Penal.

Maduro had ordered the deployment of thousands of police and soldiers who cast a menacing pall over Thursday's rallies and are keeping a watchful eye over the capital Caracas.

"We are ready!" Maduro proclaimed on his Telegram channel ahead of the investiture ceremony scheduled for noon (1600 GMT).

"No fascism or imperialism that can stop" the swearing-in, he added -- using terms by which he often refers to the opposition.

The opposition accuses Maduro, 62, of stealing the election of July 28 last year, and the United States, European Union and several Latin American countries have recognized opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as Venezuela's legitimate president-elect.

Caracas has confirmed the presence of President Miguel Diaz-Canel of Cuba -- one of Maduro's few allies -- at Friday's ceremony.

- 'We are not afraid' -

Gonzalez Urrutia, 75, had vowed to return to Venezuela to take power Friday, but those plans appeared increasingly unlikely to come to fruition in a country gripped by fear.

"Wanted" posters offering a $100,000 government reward for his capture have been plastered all over Caracas.

More than 2,400 people were arrested, 28 killed and about 200 injured in protests that met Maduro's claim of election victory last year.

He has since maintained a fragile peace with the help of the security forces and paramilitary "colectivos" -- armed civilian volunteers accused of quelling protest through a reign of neighborhood terror.

Venezuela's CNE electoral council, loyal to the regime, had announced victory for Maduro within hours of polls closing last July. It has yet to provide a detailed vote breakdown.

The opposition, for its part, released a tally of polling station showing Gonzalez Urrutia winning at least two-thirds of the vote.

Gonzalez Urrutia had replaced the wildly popular Machado, 57, on the ballot after she was barred from running by authorities.

On Thursday, Machado defiantly addressed protesters in Caracas, vowing that: "We are not afraid."

Her team reported that Machado was "violently intercepted" as she left the rally and knocked off the motorcycle she was on as shots had been fired in the vicinity.

She was then detained and forced to record a number of videos before being let go, it said.

- 'International conspiracy' -

News of Machado's detention sparked a flurry of condemnation, including from neighbor Colombia, which hosts most of the estimated seven million Venezuelans to have fled their country's economic collapse under Maduro's rule 12-year rule.

Citing "an international conspiracy to disturb Venezuelans' peace", Freddy Bernal, governor of the frontier state of Tachira, subsequently announced Friday that the border with Colombia was closed for the weekend.

US President-elect Donald Trump insisted Thursday that Machado and Gonzalez Urrutia "should not be harmed."

During his first term in office, Trump had tightened punitive measures against the Maduro government for anti-democratic actions.

The sanctions were partly lifted, then reimposed, by his successor Joe Biden and may well be hardened in Trump's next term.

Gonzalez Urrutia this week finalized an international tour seeking to pile pressure on Maduro to relinquish power. It included a stop in Washington to meet Biden, who called for a "peaceful transfer back to democratic rule."

Maduro's previous re-election, in 2018, was also widely rejected as fraudulent but he managed to cling to power through a mix of populism and repression, even as the economy imploded.

I.Yassin--SF-PST