Nicolás Maduro took office as president of Venezuela this Friday, declaring that the country “is at peace”. However, experts dispute this statement, pointing to a very different reality.
Flávia Loss, coordinator of the postgraduate course in International Relations at FESP and professor at the Mauá Institute of Technology, analyzed the situation in an interview with CNN 360º this Friday (10).
According to her, “in fact he is not at peace, what we have seen is that he has been increasingly harsh in his repression”.
Authoritarian regime and repression
Loss highlights that Venezuela can no longer be considered a democracy. “In a place where you have no respect for opposition, criticism, freedom of expression, that’s why many analysts, including me, refer to it as a regime, as an authoritarian regime”, explains the expert.
The professor highlights that the state apparatus has been used against the opposition and supporters of Edmundo González, Maduro’s main rival.
Furthermore, it points to a divided society, with protests occurring both during the elections in July 2024 and recently.
Instability scenario
“We cannot see a scenario of peace, but rather more repression, more arrests from now on”, warns Loss. This analysis directly contradicts Maduro’s statements about the country’s situation.
Maduro’s inauguration and his statements about peace in Venezuela occur in a context of growing international concern about the state of democracy in the country.
Observers fear that the crackdown on opposition and civil liberties could intensify further in the coming years.