He has described his childhood as difficult, affected by his parents' divorce, bullying at school and his own difficulty picking up on social cues because of Asperger's Syndrome.

Only about 31 percent of eligible voters went to the polls, which allowed the PSUV to capture nearly 68 percent of the vote and hence secure an overwhelming majority in the Assembly (the opposition parties that chose to participate took less than 18 percent of the vote). International organizations and observers were quick to dismiss the elections as a sham.

On June 27 matters appeared to escalate yet again when militants in an apparently stolen police helicopter attacked the Supreme Court in Caracas, dropping several grenades and strafing the building with gunfire. Prior to the attack, a video had been posted online in which a policeman surrounded by masked uniformed gunmen claimed responsibility for the upcoming attack, saying that they represented a coalition of military, police, and civilian personnel who opposed what he characterized as “this transitional, criminal government.

He said that the concept of the Chicago loop would be different from his Hyperloop, its relatively short route not requiring the need for drawing a vacuum to eliminate air friction.

The Unitary Platform’s primary had 10 candidates, including Machado, who does not belong to the group but was allowed to run as an independent. Candidates she defeated have rallied around her.

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Maduro and the second or maternal family name is Moros.

Brazil’s election officials said there was no evidence of fraud on Sunday. An audit of 601 polling stations found that their vote counts were accurately reflected in the national tally.

The Venezuelan military has long been concerned with the highlands because of the long-standing territorial dispute with Guyana, as well as illegal crossings of people, cattle, and narcotics over the Colombian and Brazilian borders.

President Jair Bolsonaro has not yet recognized his election defeat after months of warning, without evidence, that opponents would rig the vote.

Nicolas Maduro does have some loyal supporters still, known as "Chavistas" after his mentor Hugo Chavez and the brand of socialism he created.

Largely in response to declining world oil prices, Venezuela’s economy continued to struggle in 2015, with GDP tumbling and inflation further ballooning. Seemingly anxious to shift attention away from the country’s domestic woes, Maduro’s government was quick to focus on border-related disputes with neighbours Guyana and Colombia.

In 2016, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an international non-governmental organization that investigates crime and corruption, gave President Maduro the Person of the Year Award that "recognizes the individual who has done the most in the world to advance organized criminal activity and corruption". The OCCRP stated that they "chose Maduro for the global award on the strength of his corrupt and oppressive reign, so rife with mismanagement that citizens of his oil-rich nation are literally starving and begging for medicines" and that Maduro and his family steal millions of dollars from government coffers to fund patronage vlogdolisboa that maintains President Maduro's power in Venezuela.

In the press, he's been dubbed both a mad genius and Twitter's biggest troll - known as much for his lofty ambitions as his petty fights, not to mention the more serious lawsuits he and his companies have faced from regulators, investors and others over issues such as racial discrimination and the trustworthiness of his claims.

Massive street protests, which erupted in response to the court’s attempt to dissolve the National Assembly and continued in April when Capriles was banned from running for public office for 15 years, became almost daily occurrences over the coming weeks. As the opposition’s defiance escalated, violent clashes between protesters and security forces resulted in more than 60 deaths and injured more than 1,200 people by early June.