(Caracas) The announcement was expected and Nicolas Maduro will seek a third term at the head of Venezuela during the presidential election on July 28, his party having decided on Monday on his investiture for this election whose legitimacy is already in question.
“The base of the PSUV decided that Nicolas Maduro was the candidate for president, 4,240,032 people participated,” Diosdado Cabello, vice-president of the Socialist Party of Venezuela and considered number 2 in power, told the X network. even if he does not appear in the executive.
Elected for the first time in 2013 after the death of former President Hugo Chavez (1999-2013) of whom he calls himself the heir, Mr. Maduro was re-elected in 2018 in a contested election boycotted by the opposition and whose legitimacy more than 60 countries, including the United States and the EU, have not recognized.
Since then, a battery of sanctions has fallen on Venezuela and the leaders in power. But Mr. Maduro, 61, has managed to hold on with an iron fist despite the serious economic crisis the country is going through.
The formalization of his candidacy was long overdue since the Venezuelan electoral authority (CNE) announced last week the date of the presidential election as July 28, the date of Hugo Chavez’s birth. Candidatures can be officially submitted from March 21 to 25 and the electoral campaign is scheduled for July 4 to 25.
Mr. Maduro has increased his public appearances in recent weeks.
Agreement “violated”
Government and opposition agreed in October in Barbados to organize this election during the second half of 2024 in the presence of international observers.
But this agreement, under the aegis in particular of Norway, mediator in the negotiations, has since been vigorously denounced by the opposition which accuses Mr. Maduro of not having respected it. The legitimacy of the presidential election is already in question.
For Norway, however, it is “fundamental” that the Barbados agreement applies.
According to its terms, it was to open up to those “aspiring to run” the possibility of challenging their ineligibility in court. The opposition hoped that this procedure would allow its champion, Maria Corina Machado, declared ineligible by the courts, to finally be able to present herself.
But the Supreme Court, accused of being at the behest of those in power, confirmed on January 26 the ineligibility of the woman who had won the Venezuelan opposition primary in October, receiving more than two million votes and 92%. votes.
No elections “without me”, launched after his sentence to 15 years of ineligibility Mme Machado for supporting US sanctions.
She persists in wanting to introduce herself and makes multiple trips. But the closing date for applications is approaching and she may be pushed to appoint a replacement.
On Saturday, she denounced “the regime of Nicolas Maduro who kidnapped our campaign director from the state of Barinas”, bringing to four the number of leaders of her party detained since January. For meme Machado, this new arrest constitutes “a new violation of the already flouted Barbados agreement”.
Opposition beheaded
The decision of the Supreme Court to dismiss the champions of the opposition, Mme Machado, but also Henrique Capriles, a two-time former presidential candidate, has been roundly denounced by Washington, the EU and several South American countries.
At the same time, the United States announced that it would reactivate sanctions against Venezuela’s oil and gas sector, suspended for six months in the wake of the Barbados agreement.
Caracas, which has Moscow as an ally, immediately denounced American “blackmail”. Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly expressed his support for Russian head of state Vladimir Putin before and after the start of the war in Ukraine.
Other candidates, very far from the opposition which describes them as “collaborators”, have also announced their intention to run. Which, according to analysts, aims to divide the anti-Maduro vote.
The European Union, a panel of experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center based in the United States, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the bloc of emerging countries (Brics), the Caribbean Community ( CARICOM) or the African Union were invited as observers to the presidential election.