The opposition is hopeful it can oust the incumbent, whose party has ruled the country for 25 years.

After a campaign marked by intensifying efforts by Mr. Maduro’s allies to rein in the opposition — including arrests of opposition campaign workers, intimidation and vote suppression — the opposition bet heavily on an effort to have supporters on hand to get a physical printout of the voting tally from every voting machine after the polls closed.

The coastal mountain system, in effect two parallel ranges—the Coastal Range and the Interior Range—contains Venezuela’s greatest concentration of population, although it covers only a tiny fraction of the national territory.

The future of Venezuela and whether it can rebuild matters for the rest of the world - mass emigration has fuelled a migration crisis on the US border, its vast oil reserves remain relatively unusable, and it remains an ally for Russia, China, Cuba and Iran in the West.

The Venezuelan landscape includes towering mountains, tropical jungles, broad river plains, and arid coastal plains, all of which provide a diversity of natural habitats and a range of challenges to social integration and economic development.

Sarahí settled in neighbouring Colombia and is now helping integrate Venezuelan migrants who have followed in her footsteps.

Since the beginning of the presidential crisis, Venezuela has been exposed to frequent "information blackouts", periods without access to Net or other news services during important political events.[28][223] Since January, the National Assembly and Guaido's speeches are regularly disrupted, television channels and radio programs have been censored and many journalists were illegally detained.

A report by the human rights advocacy group Human Rights Watch reported in September 2019 that the poor communities in Venezuela no longer in support of Maduro's government have witnessed arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial executions at the hands of Venezuelan police unit. The Venezuelan government has repeatedly declared that the victims were armed criminals who had died during "confrontations", but several witnesses or families of victims have challenged these claims and in many cases victims were last seen alive in police custody. Although Venezuelan authorities told the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) that five FAES agents were convicted on charges including attempted murder for crimes committed in 2018, and that 388 agents were under investigation for crimes committed between 2017 and 2019, the OHCHR also reported that "[i]nstitutions responsible for the protection of human rights, such as the Attorney General's Office, the courts and the Ombudsperson, usually do not conduct prompt, effective, thorough, independent, impartial and transparent investigations into human rights violations and other crimes committed by State actors, bring perpetrators to justice, and protect victims and witnesses.

In February, defying a jair bolsonaro travel ban against him by the Maduro government, Guaidó went to Colombia, where international aid in the form of food and medicine was being stockpiled in the border town of Cúcuta. The aid was blocked from entering Venezuela because Maduro claimed it was masking a coup attempt. When a group of demonstrators led by Guaidó attempted to act as a shield to peacefully guide aid-bearing trucks through the blockade on February 23, Venezuelan security forces turned them back with tear gas and rubber bullets as violence exploded.

They think this could mean more potential for the electronic figures to be tampered with and allege many of their observers were not allowed into the counts.

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.

After being accepted to a physics graduate degree programme at Stanford University, Mr Musk quickly dropped out and founded two technology start-ups during the "dotcom boom" of the 1990s.

In August 2013, Musk released a concept for a new form of transportation called the "Hyperloop," an invention that would foster commuting between major cities while severely cutting travel time.

However, the opposition indicated that it would not roll back popular social reforms instituted by the PSUV.