The proclamation of his candidacy is a formality: Nicolás Maduro will seek a third term that will take him to almost two decades in power in Venezuela.
In the July 28 elections, the 61-year-old president will face an opposition that is struggling to define a candidate in the midst of the internal storm of remaining loyal to María Corina Machado, his first choice but politically disqualified, or finding another name.
This is what is known about Maduro’s candidacy, which was already evident and has an aggressive campaign in motion.
Maduro’s candidacy
In February, Chavismo celebrated 25 years in power, the last 11 led by Maduro after the death of Hugo Chávez in 2013.
His reelection in 2018 was already branded as “fraudulent” by the opposition, the European Union (EU) and the United States, which imposed a battery of sanctions to try, unsuccessfully, to remove him from power.
And although very underestimated at the beginning, no one dares to challenge Maduro.
No other name was proposed in the assemblies of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), convened by its leadership between March 7 and 9.
Before these meetings in which the government assures that more than 4 million militants participated, Diosdado Cabello, vice president of the PSUV, already confirmed the president’s candidacy by “consensus.”
“The bases of the PSUV decided, Nicolás Maduro was the presidential candidate, 4,240,032 participated,” he wrote in the red social X Cabello.
I will be brief: Let’s buy espadrilles, what’s coming is joropo, the bases of the PSUV decided, Nicolás Maduro presidential candidate, 4,240,032 participated. United We Will Win!! pic.twitter.com/DIVGhNstmc
— Diosdado Cabello R (@dcabellor) March 11, 2024
On March 15 it will be proclaimed at the party congress, a formality that Maduro decided to respect.
«I will wait until the big congress on Friday to see what I respond to the nomination. “Wait for the next chapter,” she said with a laugh during her weekly program “Con Maduro +.” «Come on, Nico; Come on, Nico!”, the audience repeated.
If he wins the elections, Maduro is projected to be in power for 18 years.
The opposition
The opposition, for its part, must define a candidate in the face of the disqualification of Machado, who swept the primaries of the main Unitary Platform coalition last October.
Although the liberal leader insists that she will be a candidate, in practice her candidacy is ruled out by the electoral power.
The qualification of candidates has been one of the most controversial points of the dialogues between the government and the opposition, mediated by Norway and which led to setting the date of the elections in the second half of the year. The government agreed to a mechanism to challenge the sanctions, which ended with the supreme court ratifying the coup against Machado.
The opposition demands that its candidate be qualified. However, requests for a replacement are becoming more frequent.
“We Venezuelans have to have a choice, because the country wants to vote,” two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said in an interview on Monday. “We are in a country where the objective we have is to recover democracy, pretending that you are going to an election as if you were in a democratic country is ignoring reality.”
Some actors – branded as collaborationists – are already showing their own aspirations.
The chose
The date of July 28 respects the agreement to hold the elections in the second half of 2024, although it puts in check the time for international observation missions to be formed.
The National Electoral Council (CNE), accused of serving Chavismo, has sent invitations to the European Union (EU), the UN and the Carter Center to observe the electoral process.
The official nomination of candidates before the CNE will take place between March 21 and 25, and the electoral campaign will be from July 4 to 25.
«Let the observers who want to come come. Of course, respecting the sovereignty of Venezuela,” Maduro insisted. “If the Electoral Power said it, holy word, amen, let them come then, because July 28 is going to be the festival of freedom, the festival of democracy.”
The EU sent a mission in 2021 in the last gubernatorial and mayoral elections, but it ended abruptly after Maduro branded the observers “enemies” and “spies.”
The entry Maduro will wait for the PSUV Congress to respond to his candidacy was first published in EL NACIONAL.