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2024 Venezuelan presidential election

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2024 Venezuelan presidential election
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Party PSUV Vente
Alliance GPPSB PUD
Incumbent President

Nicolás Maduro
PSUV



Politics of Venezuela
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Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in Venezuela by 2024 to choose a president for a six-year term beginning on 10 January 2025.

Background

Main articles: Crisis in Venezuela, 2018 Venezuelan presidential election, and Venezuelan presidential crisis

Crisis in Venezuela

Since 2010, Venezuela has been suffering a socioeconomic crisis under Nicolás Maduro and briefly under his predecessor Hugo Chávez as rampant crime, hyperinflation and shortages diminish the quality of life.[1][2] As a result of discontent with the government, the opposition was elected to hold the majority in the National Assembly for the first time since 1999 following the 2015 parliamentary election.[3] After the election, the lame duck National Assembly—consisting of Bolivarian officials—filled the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, the highest court in Venezuela, with Maduro allies.[3][4] The tribunal stripped three opposition lawmakers of their National Assembly seats in early 2016, citing alleged "irregularities" in their elections, thereby preventing an opposition supermajority which would have been able to challenge President Maduro.[3]

The tribunal approved several actions by Maduro and granted him more powers in 2017.[3] As protests mounted against Maduro, he called for a constituent assembly that would draft a new constitution to replace the 1999 Venezuela Constitution created under Chávez.[5] Many countries considered these actions a bid by Maduro to stay in power indefinitely,[6] and over 40 countries stated that they would not recognize the 2017 Constituent National Assembly (ANC).[7][8] The Democratic Unity Roundtable—the opposition to the incumbent ruling party—boycotted the election, saying that the ANC was "a trick to keep [the incumbent ruling party] in power".[9] Since the opposition did not participate in the election, the incumbent Great Patriotic Pole, dominated by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, won almost all seats in the assembly by default.[10] On 8 August 2017, the ANC declared itself to be the government branch with supreme power in Venezuela, banning the opposition-led National Assembly from performing actions that would interfere with the assembly while continuing to pass measures in "support and solidarity" with President Maduro, effectively stripping the National Assembly of all its powers.[11]

2018 elections and presidential crisis

In February 2018, Maduro called for presidential elections four months before the prescribed date.[12] He was declared the winner in May 2018 after multiple major opposition parties were banned from participating, among other irregularities; many said the elections were invalid.[13] Politicians both internally and internationally said Maduro was not legitimately elected,[14] and considered him an ineffective dictator.[15] In the months leading up to his 10 January 2019 inauguration, Maduro was pressured to step down by nations and bodies including the Lima Group (excluding Mexico), the United States, and the OAS; this pressure was increased after the new National Assembly of Venezuela was sworn in on 5 January 2019.[16][17] Between the May 2018 presidential election and Maduro's inauguration, there were calls to establish a transitional government.[18][19]

Maduro's new six-year term did not begin until 10 January 2019, when he took his official oath at a public ceremony in Caracas in front of the Venezuelan Supreme Court.[20] The ceremony was attended by spectators such as Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Bolivian President Evo Morales.[20] The elections were widely disputed both within Venezuela and in the broader international community. In January 2019, the National Assembly declared the results of the election invalid, and invoked clauses of the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution to install National Assembly Speaker Juan Guaidó as acting president, precipitating the Venezuelan presidential crisis. Maduro's supporters refused to acknowledge the move, and Guaidó was placed under arrest for a short time. Several international organizations and independent countries have lined up to support either side of the conflict, and the former Supreme Tribunal of Justice of Venezuela, in exile in Panama since 2017, has given its support to the legitimacy of the National Assembly's moves.

Restructuring of the National Electoral Council (CNE)

In 2020, the Committee of Electoral Candidacies, in charge of appointing a new National Electoral Council (CNE), announced that it would suspend its meetings because of the coronavirus pandemic.[21]

2020 transitional government proposal

On 31 March 2020, the United States proposed a transitional government that would exclude both Maduro and Guaidó from the presidency.[22] The deal would enforce a power-sharing scenario between the different government factions. Elections would have to be held within the year, and all foreign militaries, particularly Cuba and Russia, would have to leave the country. The US were still seeking Maduro's arrest at the time of the announcement.[23] Other aspects of the US deal would include releasing all political prisoners and setting up a five-person council to lead the country; two members each chosen by Maduro and Guaidó would sit on the council, with the last member selected by the four. The European Union also agreed to remove sanctions if the deal went ahead. Experts have noted that the deal is similar to earlier proposals but explicitly mentions who would lead a transitional government, something which stalled previous discussions, and comes shortly after the US indicted Maduro, which might pressure him to peacefully leave power.[24]

Guaidó accepted the proposal,[25] while Venezuela's foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, rejected it and declared that only parliamentary elections would take place in 2020.[26]

Date

Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in 2024. In November 2022, Diosdado Cabello, vice-president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), insisted for two consecutive days that the elections be moved forward to the first semester of 2023, pointing out that the opposition would end up confronting each other if this were the case given that the primaries to define the candidate to represent them are planned for the same year.[27]

On 16 May 2023, the Unitary Platform would announce the holding of a primary process to choose a single candidate for the presidential elections. At the moment, 13 candidacies have been declared for the process.

Electoral system

See also: Elections in Venezuela § Polling procedure

The President of Venezuela is elected by plurality in a single round of voting.[28]

The elections will be overseen by the National Electoral Council, with poll workers drafted via a lottery of registered voters. Polling places are equipped with multiple high-tech touch-screen DRE voting machines, one to a "mesa electoral", or voting "table". After the vote is cast, each machine prints out a paper ballot, or VVPAT, which is inspected by the voter and deposited in a ballot box belonging to the machine's table. The voting machines perform in a stand-alone fashion, disconnected from any network until the polls close.[29] Voting session closure at each of the voting stations in a given polling center is determined either by the lack of further voters after the lines have emptied, or by the hour, at the discretion of the president of the voting table.

As part of the election administration the National Electoral Council planned a post-election audit of 54% of polling places, comparing the electronic records with the paper trail.

The first publication of the Electoral Gazette documented that a total of 21,010,514 voters were registered in Venezuela's Electoral Registry, 20,675,478 of which were in Venezuela, 107,836 were registered abroad and 227,200 were foreign citizens in the country. The NGO Súmate warned that this continued a trend in the decrease of registered voters in the six previous publications of the gazette in 2021 and 2022, including 84,115 less voters from the last publication. Súmate also warned that there were 53,991 voters with some kind of objection and would not be able to vote, asking voters to check their status in the Electoral Council's website and follow the steps provided to file a claim if needed.[30]

Electoral ratings

Chavismo - opposition

Pollster Date Sample size Chavismo Opposition Not answering Not voting
Hercon Consultores[31] 03/02/23 1.000 17,2% 20,1% 62,7% -

Per candidate

Pollster Date Sample size Nicolás Maduro
PSUV 		María Corina Machado
Vente 		Manuel Rosales
UNT 		Benjamín Rauseo
Ind. 		Juan Guaidó
VP 		Henrique Capriles
PJ 		Other Undecided Not voting
Datincorp[32] 05/02/23 1.192 15,69% 16.86% 9,23% 11,91% 2,27% 6,8% 5,7% 7,47% 24,08%

Opposition primaries

June

On 3 June 2023 a group of women identified with the ruling party insulted and physically assaulted pre-candidate Henrique Capriles during a visit to Santa Inés, Carabobo state, in an attempt to disrupt his campaign.[33][34]

On 30 June 2023, the Comptroller General announced that pre-candidate and former National Assembly member María Corina Machado was disqualified from holding public office for 15 years, linking her to alleged crimes of Juan Guaidó, as well as supporting international sanctions against the country. She can still participate in the opposition primaries because they are not regulated by Maduro's government.[35][36][37] Capriles has the same sentence and cannot hold office until 2032.[35] Analysts determined that the accusation of having participated in the interim was incoherent, taking into account that María Corina was not a member of the 2015 opposition National Assembly (being prevented by a disqualification from the Comptroller's Office), in addition to never having been appointed in any position in Guaidó's interim government.[38] The disqualification has been considered illegal and unconstitutional by several jurists, including constitutional lawyer Allan Brewer Carías [es]. The Latin American and Caribbean Network for Democracy cited the precedent of the Petro Urrego v. Colombia sentence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2020, which determined that "it is a serious violation of political human rights if an administrative authority, and not a judge through due judicial process, politically disqualifies a citizen".[39]

Organizations such as the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the European Union, and Human Rights Watch, as well as countries such as Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Ecuador, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Chile, Canada and France, rejected the disqualification of María Corina.[40] Several foreign political leaders have condemned her disqualification, such as President Luis Lacalle Pou of Uruguay, President Mario Abdo Benítez of Paraguay, and President Gustavo Petro of Colombia, who in the past was also disqualified by an administrative instance and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights restored his political rights.[41][42] At the Mercosur summit, President Alberto Fernández of Argentina, and President Lula da Silva of Brazil, refused to reject the disqualification.[43][44] Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State, called Machado's disqualification "deeply unfortunate".[45] The European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, stated that the disqualification "undermines democracy".[46][47]

July

On 10 July 2023, reported militants of the Communist Party of Venezuela filed a writ of amparo to the Supreme Tribunal of Justice to appoint an ad hoc board considering to the party, saying that it is "kidnapped" by its general secretary Óscar Figuera. The action followed the patten of the Democratic Action, Copei and Tupamaro parties, where new presidencies were imposed judicially, co-opting the name and symbols of the parties. Communist movements in Latin America expressed their support for the party, as well as the Communist Workers' Platform USA and the American Council of Bolsheviks, who said in a joint statement "the [United Socialist Party of Venezuela] (PSUV), as a servant of the bourgeoisie, can never fulfill their false promise of socialism".[48][49]

The same day, Venezuelan fact checking outlet Cazadores de Fake News denounced a discredit operation against María Corina Machado. The operation was promoted by a disinformation network that originally spread disinformation Leopoldo López, Juan Guaidó and other opposition politicians, and now focused in attacking María Corina.[50]

On 12 July, eight out of the thirteen opposition candidates held a debate in the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. It was the first presidential debate in Venezuela in 11 years, since 2012. The participants were María Corina Machado for Vente Venezuela, Carlos Prósperi for Democratic Action, Freddy Superlano for Popular Will, trasgender candidate Tamara Adrián for Unidos por la Dignidad, Delsa Solórzano for Encuentro Ciudadano, Andrés Velásquez for La Causa R, César Pérez Vivas for Concertación Ciudadana and Andrés Caleca for Movimiento por Venezuela.[51][52][53]

On 15 July, pro-government militants tried to attack María Corina during a campaign act in Vargas state. The following day, on 16 July, prevented a campaign rally in Petare, in the east of Caracas.[54][55]

On 22 July, Vente Venezuela denounced death threats to María Corina by the National Liberation Army (ELN), a far-left Colombian guerrilla group, after her campaign headquarters in La Fría, Táchira state, was painted overnight with messages such as "death to María Corina" and "primaries without María Corina", signed by the ELN. Four days later, the group denied being the authors of those threats. [56][57]

References

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  28. ^ Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela IFES
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  36. ^ Perdomo, Luna (30 June 2023). "José Brito: Contraloría inhabilitó a María Corina Machado por 15 años". Tal Cual (in Spanish). Retrieved 10 July 2023.
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  56. ^ Semana (22 July 2023). "Urgente | ELN amenaza de muerte a María Corina Machado en Venezuela: le exigen que se aparte de las elecciones primarias". Semana (in Spanish). Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  57. ^ "ELN niega autoría en grafitis que aparecieron en una sede de María Corina Machado". 26 July 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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