CARACAS, Venezuela, Aug 28, (AP): 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 fueled 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.