Maduro Retakes Venezuela Assembly, Cementing Control
- Regime allies consolidate power after December election
- Guaido installs competing legislative body in small ceremony
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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro installed a new National Assembly filled with regime loyalists, consolidating his power over key institutions in the crisis-torn nation despite mounting U.S. sanctions.
Carrying pictures of the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, lawmakers on Tuesday elected former Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez as the new president of the legislative body. Maduro’s son Nicolas Maduro Guerra and his wife Cilia Flores were among the 277 representatives who took their seats -- in their vast majority supporters of the ruling socialist party, following December elections the opposition has denounced as fraudulent.