Venezuela sets presidential election for July 28, the birth of Hugo Chávez

The expected presidential elections in Venezuela They will be on July 28, Hugo Chávez’s birthday, with the president Nicolas Maduro as a natural candidate for re-election and the opposition on the ropes with its main candidate disqualified.

The board of the National Electoral Council (CNE), of the official line, announced this Tuesday the date, approved by “unanimity”. The elections will be held a little more than five months before the winner takes office, on January 10, 2025.

The schedule “contemplates all constitutional, legal and technical requirements“said the president of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso, former comptroller responsible for disqualifications of opponents and sanctioned by the United States in 2017 and the European Union in 2020.

The announcement of the date coincides with the 11th anniversary of the death of leftist Chávez (1999-2013), whose legacy Maduro has promised to maintain.

Maduro already seems to be campaigning with trips to the province for government and political events that, until now, were an exception.

The opposition, in contrast, is under pressure. In practice, it does not have a candidate, after a 15-year disqualification from holding public office was ratified against former representative María Corina Machado, winner of her primaries.

The schedule

The deadline to register candidacies was set between March 21 and 25 and the electoral campaign will be from July 4 to 25.

“He is giving the opposition 20 days to resolve“a possible alternative candidate to Machado, Luis Vicente León, director of the polling firm Datanalisis, told AFP at a time when the opposition leader remains active in political events despite the fact that her disqualification, ratified by the supreme court in January, does not will allow you to register.

The government and the opposition had agreed on elections in the second half of 2024 in negotiations mediated by Norway, in a pact that contemplates the observation of the European Union and other international actors.

The EU sent a mission in 2021 in the last gubernatorial and mayoral elections. He identified improvements in the voting system, but also irregularities such as the use of public resources in the campaign, the disqualification “arbitrary” of candidates and the establishment of control points of the ruling party at voting centers.

Their presence in the country ended abruptly, after Maduro called the observers “enemies” and “spies”.

“Come on, Nico!”

Maduro, who has governed since 2013 after being anointed by Chávez before his death, said earlier this year that it was “premature” confirm whether he would seek a third term, although important Chavista leaders take for granted his candidacy for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

His re-election in 2018 was criticized as “fraudulent” by the opposition, which boycotted the elections, and the United States, which imposed a battery of sanctions to try, unsuccessfully, to remove him from power.

The EU also ignored the result.

Maduro announced on Monday that the elections would be at the end of July, recalling the “mega elections” on July 30, 2000, in which Chávez was re-elected for the first time after the approval of a new Constitution.

“Come on, Nico!“, a slogan in support of the president, was chanted this Tuesday in the plenary session of Parliament after the announcement of the date.

“And now?”

Machado has not yet reacted to the schedule, but León maintained that “It is very clear that María Corina is not going to be a candidate” and “she is not going to allow her candidacy to be replaced by someone she does not directly name.””.

Machado, although names are being considered, has denied the possibility of stepping aside, insisting that he will go “until the end”, supported by the more than 2 million votes with which it swept the primaries of the opposition Unitary Platform coalition.

“On March 21, all of Venezuela accompanies our unitary candidate to register”wrote in X the leader Juan Guaidó, exiled in the United States.

But Henrique Capriles, a two-time former presidential candidate and also disqualified, asks himself: “And now?”

“You have to make decisions”, he published in X. “Under no circumstances should we abandon the power of the vote, (we must) put the country above any personal interest.”.

Other leaders far from the traditional opposition – branded as “collaborationists”- have announced intentions to run in the presidential elections, which analysts estimate seeks to divide the anti-Chavista vote.