Venezuela is set to hold elections in 2025 for the National Assembly, the country’s 23 state governments and 335 city governments, as well as local legislatures. The announcement was made on Monday (26) by President Nicolás Maduro. According to the leader, the election is the “mother of all elections”.
“In 2025, within 12 months, we will be in elections again with campaigns, candidates, governors, city halls, the National Assembly, and we are already preparing, seeing what the method will be, who the candidates will be, we are already there,” said Maduro.
Last Sunday (25), the country held elections to select projects for the approximately 4,500 communes that exist in Venezuela. The National Popular Consultation for the communes and the announcement of the “mega-elections” for 2025 have been used by the government to counter criticism that the country has become a dictatorship and that there has been fraud in the presidential election of July 28.
“With the election on July 28, we have reached 31 elections in 21 years of revolution. Seven consultative referendums. I believe that there is no country in the world that does this. Of the 31 elections, we won 29. And of those 29, almost the entire right wing denounced fraud. They only recognize it when they win. When they win a state government, they recognize it; when they won the majority of the National Assembly, in 2015, they recognized it,” he argued.
The Venezuelan president also highlighted that candidates and parties that do not accept the decisions of Venezuelan institutions – including the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), which ratified Maduro’s victory on July 28 – should not be able to participate in the upcoming votes.
“Those who do not recognize the Electoral Power, the Judicial Power, simply by law cannot participate in the elections either in 2025, or in any electoral process,” he added. The Venezuelan government has advocated changing the electoral law to prohibit candidate registration who do not recognize Maduro’s reelection.
According to the president, the strategy of part of the opposition – which has denounced fraud in the vote on July 28 – is taking part of the parties out of the country’s legal political game.
“The far right is leading a good sector of the opposition into a rut. Once again, they are removing them from political life, from the legal and constitutional political struggle,” he said, citing the case of Congressman Juan Guaidó who, in January 2019, declared himself president of Venezuela.
In 2018, the opposition also refused to participate in the election that re-elected Maduro for the first time, claiming that the vote was not fair and clean. This year, an agreement was reached between the opposition and the government so that everyone could participate in the vote.
Fraud
After the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced Maduro’s victory in the July 29 vote, countries, international organizations and part of the opposition accused the Electoral Authority of fraud and asked for the data to be presented for each of the polling stations, which has not yet happened. The suspension of three audits scheduled for after the vote also reinforces suspicions about the result.
On Monday (27), the CNE reported that it will publish the data in Official Gazette of the country. Article 125 of the Organic Law of Electoral Processes determines that information about the election must be published within 30 days after the winner is declared. Therefore, the deadline ends on August 30.
Dome
The Venezuelan president announced the elections in Venezuela for 2025 during the 11th Summit of Heads of State and Government of ALBA-TCP (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty).
The group includes Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and the Caribbean countries of Dominica, Grenada, Antigua and Barbados, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Saint Kitts and Nevis. In a joint statement, ALBA expressed its support for the re-election of Nicolas Maduro.
