RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Venezuela will hold parliamentary elections on December 6th. The President of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Indira Alfonzo, announced the electoral calendar at a press conference on Thursday. According to the Constitution, elections must be held before the end of the year.
Accordingly, party registration will take place between July 13th and 26th, candidates and lists must be submitted between August 10th and 19th and the election campaign is due to run between November 21st and December 6th. A comprehensive set of inspections will start on August 14th and will run until January 21st 2021. The dates have been adjusted due to the Covid-19 pandemic, said Alfonzo.
This year’s parliamentary elections will see important changes in the CNE’s norms as well as in the number of elected representatives.
For the 2021 – 2026 legislative period, 277 deputies will be elected, 110 more than before. The 87 constituencies will be maintained. Of the 277 parliamentarians, 48 will be elected for the first time through a national list and the remainder in the 87 constituencies with a division of 52 to 48 between electoral lists and individual nominations.
These reforms are in line with a Supreme Court ruling that overturned two articles of the electoral law in June and ordered the CNE to set new norms for greater proportional representation in parliament to ensure greater “political pluralism”.
According to the CNE, 28 national political organizations, 52 regional parties, and six indigenous organizations are currently eligible for the December elections.
Changes to the electoral rules were among the topics discussed at the Round Table for the National Dialogue between the government of President Nicolás Maduro and a number of smaller opposition parties.
Following the Election Council’s announcement, Maduro called on the population to take part in the elections and stressed that the government would introduce health and safety protocols. “During this pandemic there have been elections all over the world and Venezuela is no exception,” he said in a televised speech. The participation of 86 political organizations “strengthens democracy and peace in the country,” he added.
Leander Perez, a member of the “Fatherland for All – PPT” party, said that the new regulations could benefit smaller parties and left-wing parties such as the PPT or the Communist Party of Venezuela, which have been calling for greater proportional representation for years.
“The new norms encourage smaller parties to draw up their own national lists and achieve representation in the National Assembly. Before that they were forced to join the large coalitions, the [pro-government] Great Patriotic Pole and the [opposition alliance] Table of Democratic Unity,” he explained.
Asked about the strategies left-wing parties should pursue, Perez insisted that they should exploit the more favorable conditions and create an “independent” bloc in parliament.
“We must build a bloc that acts together with popular movements regardless of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to defend a leftist agenda: Demand higher wages and the release of imprisoned trade unionists, oppose the eviction of small farmers, denounce privatizations and more,” he said.
Opposition leader Juan Guaidó reiterated after the CNE’s announcement that he would not take part in the elections, which he referred to as a “farce”. “There cannot be elections in Maduro’s Venezuela,” according to a statement by Guaidó’s press office. The opposition leader has always refused to take part in elections as long as Maduro is in office and has repeatedly called on the Venezuelan armed forces to overthrow the President and put him in power. However, how the different opposition parties that are not currently engaged in dialogue with the government will react, remains to be seen.
The US State Department declared that it would not recognize the parliamentary elections after the Supreme Court appointed a new election council in mid-June.