Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro will run for a third consecutive term this July in an election where he is assured of winning after disqualifying the main opposition candidate.
Maduro was nominated by his party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, for the top job in a convention in Caracas.
“I accept the presidential candidacy for the July 28 elections. With the support of the people, we will go to a new victory for the Bolivarian and Chavista forces,” Maduro is quoted to have said.
The elections are set to take place on March 25. Leading opposition candidate María Corina Machado was banned by the government and is facing growing pressure to select a replacement.
Machado, a former lawmaker, rose to the top of the opposition leadership in 2023, filling a void left when other leaders went into exile. Her courage and principled attack on government corruption and Maduro’s mismanagement of the oil-dependent economy rallied millions of Venezuelans to overwhelmingly vote for her in an October opposition primary that the government tried to outlaw.
Machado rose to the top of the opposition leadership in 2023, filling a void left when other leaders went into exile. She is increasingly facing pressure from foreign leaders and government opponents to make a substitute to take on the entrenched incumbent, Nicolás Maduro.
The latest survey done by Caracas-based firm ORC Consultores Frequency 58 showed Machado with 67.7% of voter intention in February, compared with Maduro’s 19.2% and less than 6% for other candidates.
The last free and fair elections to have taken place was in 2015 when opposition swept control of the National Assembly in 2015. But, since then opposition parties have boycotted elections.
Meanwhile, Maduro’s government has accused Washington of conspiring to assassinate him and arrested more political opponents and expelled the staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The government is under strong international pressure to hold a free and fair election, to release activists and political opponents it has detained, and to de-escalate tensions with Guyana, its neighbour.
