Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro on Tues­day ap­point­ed a rul­ing so­cial­ist par­ty boss to over­see the coun­try’s po­lice forces, em­pow­er­ing a hard-line loy­al­ist who has vowed to pur­sue gov­ern­ment op­po­nents as part of a crack­down that has alarmed hu­man rights groups.

Maduro named Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo in­te­ri­or min­is­ter as part of a Cab­i­net shuf­fle fol­low­ing last month’s con­test­ed pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

Along with Maduro, Ca­bel­lo is one of the most fer­vent stal­warts of the so-called Bo­li­var­i­an rev­o­lu­tion start­ed by the late Hugo Chávez and has long been con­sid­ered the sec­ond most pow­er­ful per­son in Venezuela af­ter Maduro. A re­tired army lieu­tenant, he fought along­side Chávez in a failed mil­i­tary up­ris­ing in 1992 and lat­er served as act­ing pres­i­dent when Chávez him­self was re­moved in a brief coup a decade lat­er.

How­ev­er, Chávez passed him over when he picked Maduro — a civil­ian with no mil­i­tary pedi­gree — as his suc­ces­sor short­ly be­fore he died of can­cer in 2013. Since then, Ca­bel­lo has served in a num­ber of roles, in­clud­ing Na­tion­al As­sem­bly pres­i­dent and head of the rul­ing so­cial­ist par­ty. Un­til now, he nev­er served in Maduro’s Cab­i­net, an omis­sion that has long fu­elled spec­u­la­tion of an un­spo­ken ri­val­ry be­tween them.

Hu­man rights groups fear that Ca­bel­lo’s ap­point­ment to in­te­ri­or min­is­ter, with over­sight of Venezuela’s po­lice forces, will in­ten­si­fy the gov­ern­ment’s heavy-hand­ed re­sponse to protests that erupt­ed af­ter last month’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, when Maduro was de­clared the win­ner de­spite strong ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed by the op­po­si­tion that its can­di­date pre­vailed by a 2-to-1 mar­gin.

“If the new Cab­i­net is a bell­wether of what Maduro in­tends to do, Ca­bel­lo’s ap­point­ment is an in­di­ca­tion of even more re­pres­sion to come,” said Juani­ta Goe­ber­tus, di­rec­tor for the Amer­i­c­as at Hu­man Rights Watch.

More than 2,000 peo­ple — in­clud­ing jour­nal­ists, politi­cians and aid work­ers — have been ar­rest­ed since the Ju­ly 28 elec­tion. The wave of ar­rests is like­ly to fea­ture promi­nent­ly at a spe­cial meet­ing Wednes­day of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States in Wash­ing­ton to dis­cuss a re­port on the crack­down by the In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights.

The lat­est op­po­nent to be de­tained is a lawyer for op­po­si­tion pow­er­house María Co­ri­na Macha­do, who was barred from run­ning for of­fice against Maduro and in­stead cam­paigned in sup­port of a last-minute, stand-in can­di­date, for­mer diplo­mat Ed­mun­do González.

“They’re try­ing to sub­due us, to dis­tract us and to ter­ri­fy us,” Macha­do said on Tues­day de­nounc­ing what she called the “kid­nap­ping” of the aide, Perkins Rocha.

“We will con­tin­ue mov­ing for­ward, for Perkins, for all the pris­on­ers and per­se­cut­ed, and for all of Venezuela,” Macha­do wrote on the so­cial me­dia plat­form X. “We will be free.”

Ca­bel­lo, 61, has been among key in­sid­ers call­ing for a force­ful re­sponse to those cast­ing doubt on Maduro’s vic­to­ry. With deep roots in the se­cu­ri­ty forces, he’s seen his in­flu­ence ex­pand as Venezue­lans have tired of Maduro, blam­ing him for wreck­ing the oil-rich econ­o­my.

“They’re hid­ing like rats but we’re go­ing to grab them,” Ca­bel­lo said about sev­er­al promi­nent op­po­nents in an ad­dress to the Maduro-con­trolled leg­is­la­ture a day af­ter the elec­tion.

The U.S., Cana­da, Eu­ro­pean Union and Switzer­land are among gov­ern­ments that have sanc­tioned Ca­bel­lo for an ar­ray of al­leged crimes rang­ing from mon­ey laun­der­ing to hu­man rights abus­es. The U.S. has al­so of­fered a $10 mil­lion re­ward for his ar­rest to face fed­er­al charges of lead­ing what U.S. pros­e­cu­tors have dubbed the “Car­tel of the Suns,” an al­leged drug-smug­gling ring in­volv­ing Venezuela’s mil­i­tary.

Ca­bel­lo is per­haps best known — and feared — for a week­ly talk show on state TV, called “Hit­ting it With a Sledge­ham­mer”, in which he smears and at­tacks gov­ern­ment op­po­nents.

Maduro said the Cab­i­net shuf­fle aims to “ac­cel­er­ate and deep­en changes that the peo­ple need”. As part of the shake­up, his vice pres­i­dent, Del­cy Ro­driguez, will al­so now serve as oil min­is­ter. Hec­tor Ro­driguez, gov­er­nor of Mi­ran­da state sur­round­ing Cara­cas and who some saw as a younger al­ter­na­tive to Maduro, was picked to serve as ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter. —CARA­CAS, Venezuela (AP)

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Sto­ry by JORGE RUE­DA and JOSHUA GOOD­MAN | As­so­ci­at­ed Press.  Joshua Good­man re­port­ed from Mi­a­mi.