Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that it would postpone legislative and regional elections from April 27 to May 25, 2025. During these elections, voters will elect 277 seats in the National Assembly and 23 governorships across the country whose terms will begin in January 2026.
The election was called in January, six months after the presidential election and shortly after Nicolás Maduro was controversially sworn in for a third term as president.
To date, the Maduro-allied CNE has yet to publish detailed precinct-level vote tallies to prove Maduro’s re-election, despite insistence from independent electoral observers and the international community.
During a televised address in January, CNE President Elvis Amoroso said that the electoral authority is “committed to ensuring that political organizations, candidates and all sectors of democratic life participating in the 2025 elections experience the highest levels of reliability and transparency,” vowing to “conduct the necessary audits in compliance with constitutional, legal, and regulatory provisions.”
Amoroso announced that according to electoral law, all political parties and candidates that seek to participate in the April elections will have to sign a document pledging to respect the results published by the CNE, as the “constitutional power of the Republic.” This is despite the electoral entity failing to comply with constitutional law and making precinct-level results from July available for audit.
Worsening democratic conditions
In the Democracy Index 2024 published by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Venezuela scored 2.24 out of 10, where 10 is a full democracy and 0 is an authoritarian regime. It was ranked second lowest in the Latin American region.
Regional elections could allow the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to recover from the domestic and international blowback of the disputed July elections, in a tighter, more restricted political framework.
In the general election, the opposition coalition gathered and digitized 85,18% of precinct voting tallies, through thousands of electoral witnesses and volunteers throughout the country. With these tallies, the opposition was able to publish their own results, disputing those provided by the CNE, showing their candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, was the victor. The opposition’s publication of the results helped to inspire nation-wide protests against Maduro’s alleged victory.
Image Credit: NoonIcarus via Wikimedia Commons
Now, candidates and political parties who wish to participate in May elections must sign a document pledging to abide by the CNE’s results.
Additionally, government repression against political leaders and activists has persisted since the presidential election. Many of the leaders and activists detained would have been potential candidates in these elections, like Luis Palocz, who aspired for the mayorship in Chacao, Miranda and was detained in December 2024.
Will the opposition participate?
The regional elections have created a new phase for Venezuela’s opposition. Although the leading opposition coalition – the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) – prioritizes the enforcement of González Urrutia’s victory in July, minority sectors are announcing they will participate in the May election.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado has continually called to boycott the May election. In a video posted to social media on January 19, she said that until the results of July 28 come into force, “it is not appropriate to participate in elections of any kind, going to vote again and again without respecting the results is not defending the vote.”
The Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) will not participate in the regional and legislative elections as they stated that there are “no guarantees” nor “electoral transparency” after the presidential election last year.
However, other prominent opposition leaders who lead minority currents like Henrique Capriles and Manuel Rosales have announced that they will participate in the election.
Image credit: César González via Wikimedia Commons
Image Credit: Idesousa via Wikimedia Commons
Capriles ran against Maduro in the 2013 presidential election, which the opposition leader and other groups claimed was fraudulent, but they were not able to provide any proof.
Capriles has now split from his Primero Justicia (PJ) party’s position as he claimed that: “The vote is a very personal decision and those who ask me, there you have my position, never again abstain, abstention, if we make a review of the last 25 years, has left us nothing,” the leader said in a message to his WhatsApp channel.
The center-right PJ party reiterated its stance after Capriles and other leaders expressed their intention to participate in elections: “We reaffirm our commitment to move forward, to build unity and to support Edmundo González and Maria Corina Machado on this path of transformation in the country.”
It has been reported that Rosales, ex-presidential candidate in the opposition’s primaries in 2023 and current governor of Zulia, will seek re-election for the governorship of Venezuela’s Westernmost state.
Rosales’ party, Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT), has announced its participation in the May election stating that: “To abstain is to leave the way clear for the ruling party, which threatens with a constitutional reform to impose a model without dissenting voices.”
The party’s statement continued: “It is not a matter of trusting the system, but of challenging it democratically. That is why we call to organize, vote and continue fighting until we win. The government wants us demobilized, surrendered, we believe in persistence and action.”
Centrados, the party of ex-presidential candidate Enrique Marquez who was detained by government forces on January 7, will also participate in elections.
These minority opposition parties will participate in the May election so as to not lose democratic space. Yet, political pundits have said that the participation of these small, moderate opposition factions will have minimal impact against Maduro’s ruling party.
Abstention in previous regional and legislative elections
The last legislative election in 2020 was overwhelmingly won by the PSUV, as the most important opposition parties were left off the ballot and many factions called for abstention. Participation was low at 31%, 40 points lower than the 2015 election where the opposition won a majority.
Regional elections in 2021 had already shown the tension and divisions within the opposition over participation in elections. Some factions called for abstention and others announced their desire to participate late in the campaign.
The opposition parties only won three governorships, whilst the ruling PSUV won 20. Out of 334 municipalities, the opposition only won 59, and other independent movements who are widely anti-PSUV, won 71.
Featured image credit:
Image: Consejo Nacional Electoral CloseUp.JPG
Photographer: Victor Bujosa Michelli via Wikimedia Commons
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Consejo_Nacional_Electoral_CloseUp.JPG
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
The post Regional and legislative elections in Venezuela: Will the opposition participate? appeared first on Latin America Reports.
