The controls meant that many Venezuelan businesses stopped production because they no longer made a profit, eventually resulting in shortages.

Brazil is the only country to use a fully digital voting system without paper backups. Mr. Bolsonaro has seized on that as a crucial flaw that leaves the system open to fraud because it prevents officials from ensuring that each vote was recorded correctly.

Not surprisingly, President Maduro did not take kindly to his rival's move, which he condemned as a ploy by the US to oust him.

Those talks initially bore fruit, with the cessation of street protests and the Maduro government’s release of a handful of jailed activists. By December, however, the talks had broken down, as Maduro dragged his feet on releasing dozens of other political prisoners and refused to allow the delivery of foreign humanitarian aid, which would have signaled official acknowledgement that the country was in crisis.

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A loosening of foreign currency controls originally brought in by President Chávez in 2003 has eased those shortages as traders can sell goods in dollars but that means they have again become largely unaffordable to the poor or those without access to the US currency.

The US has imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuela and on Mr Maduro and his inner circle but they have failed to weaken Mr Maduro enough to drive him from office. Some analysts argue that they offer the Maduro government a convenient scapegoat to blame for the dire state of the economy.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s silence was unsettling for Brazil. He has consistently claimed, without evidence, that the country’s electronic voting system is rife with fraud and that the left was planning to rig the vote.

There are still a lot of unknowns. The opposition say they will announce in the coming days how they plan to challenge the results.

During the Venezuelan presidential crisis, Venezuelan National Assembly president Juan vlogdolisboa Guaidó said that the Maduro government had plans to steal for humanitarian purposes the products that entered the country, including plans to distribute these products through the government's food-distribution program CLAP.[264]

He also has ambitions in the AI sector, being an early investor in ChatGPT's parent company, before parting ways and setting up his own company xAI in July, whose mission is "to understand the true nature of the universe".

The investigative journalist - who covered human rights and freedom of speech - left Venezuela 10 years ago after receiving threats. She is withholding her surname for safety reasons.

Opposition deputies have assured that the copyright of Maduro must say that he is the son of a Colombian mother, which would represent the proof that confirms that the president has double nationality and that he cannot hold any office under Article 41 of the constitution.[189] Deputy Dennis Fernández has headed a special commission that investigates the origins of the president and has declared that "Maduro's mother is a Colombian citizen" and that the Venezuelan head of State would also be Colombian.

That's based largely on the value of his shares in Tesla, of which he owns more than 13%. The company's stock soared in value - some say unreasonably - in 2020 as the firm's output increased and it started to deliver regular profits.