On 10 January 2025 Nicolas Maduro was inaugurated for a third six-year term as president of Venezuela, an event the opposition and much of the international community rejected as the consolidation of an illegitimate hold on power after a disputed election. In the 28 July 2024 vote, the electoral authorities loyal to Maduro declared him the winner with about 52 percent but, breaking with past practice, did not release detailed polling-station tallies. The opposition, whose barred leader Maria Corina Machado had backed candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, published tally sheets it collected from a large majority of voting machines that it said showed Gonzalez winning by roughly a two-to-one margin, a claim that independent observers including the US-based Carter Center found credible while declining to validate the official result.
Post-election protests were met with a heavy crackdown that killed more than 20 people and jailed some 2,000. Gonzalez fled to exile in Spain in September under an arrest warrant. The United States, the European Union, and several Latin American governments recognized Gonzalez as president-elect and imposed new sanctions.
Maduro, backed by the security forces, Russia, and China, was nonetheless sworn in on 10 January, calling his inauguration a Venezuelan victory over foreign interference; Machado called it a coup against the constitution.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Target identified in Coup Atlas research: Maduro remained in power, inaugurated for a third term over the disputed election; the opposition's Gonzalez was recognized abroad as president-elect but was in exile; not physically harmed
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Nicolas Maduro (president inaugurated for a third term)
Edmundo Gonzalez (opposition candidate recognized abroad as president-elect, in exile)
Maria Corina Machado (barred opposition leader who called it a coup)
Sources
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for a third six-year term on 10 January 2025 after a contentious election that saw his opponent Edmundo Gonzalez claim voter fraud and declare victory, defying international pressure and US-led sanctions, while the opposition published what it said were official tally sheets showing Gonzalez won by a large margin.
Maduro was sworn in for his third term despite evidence of an election loss; the opposition collected tally sheets from more than 80 percent of electronic voting machines showing Gonzalez won twice as many votes, and the US-based Carter Center, which observed the election on the government's invitation, declared the opposition-published tallies legitimate.
The opposition accuses Maduro of stealing the 28 July election, and the United States, the European Union, and several Latin American countries recognized opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as Venezuela's legitimate president-elect, while post-election protests were met with a crackdown that arrested about 2,000 people and killed at least 25.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado accused Maduro of a coup d'etat in a video after he was sworn in, saying that with his inauguration they had crossed the red line and stomped on the constitution, while Maduro called the opposition's failure to stop the inauguration a great Venezuelan victory and accused external powers of attacking Venezuela.
Handled neutrally on contested Venezuelan politics. Coded fate not physically harmed is verified: Maduro remained in power. Coded as an auto-coup on 01-10 (his third-term inauguration): the framing rests on the view, held by the opposition (Machado explicitly called it a coup d'etat), the US, the EU, and much of Latin America, that Maduro seized an unelected term after losing the vote, with independent observers (Carter Center) finding the opposition tallies credible. Maduro and his government reject this, calling the election valid and the inauguration a defense of sovereignty; the summary presents both sides. IMPORTANT: this is a DIFFERENT record from the gold-standard Venezuela 2002 page (id 10101032026), which was NOT touched. Ties to Venezuela's disputed 2018 election and the 2017 self-coup (10103292017) already enriched.
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Maduro remained in power, inaugurated for a third term over the disputed election; the opposition's Gonzalez was recognized abroad as president-elect but was in exile; not physically harmed.
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →