This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president, has said that he is ready to seek another term in office after the pro-government constituent assembly declared that new presidential elections must be held by 30 April.

Analysts described Tuesday’s announcement as an attempt by the ruling socialist party to exploit opposition disarray – and cement control before the country’s economic crisis becomes even more acute.

The announcement comes after the European Union levied sanctions against seven high-ranking officials for their role in cracking down on democratic freedoms and for violently crushing anti-Maduro protests last year.

“If the world wants to apply sanctions, we will apply elections,” said a defiant Diosdado Cabello, one of the sanctioned officials and vice-president of the assembly, a pro-Maduro body that has assumed extraordinary powers to run the country. “There will be revolution for a long time to come.”



“I’m a humble worker,” he told reporters. “I am ready to be a candidate if that’s what the social and political forces of the Bolivarian revolution decide.”



A former bus driver, union organizer and foreign minister, Maduro, 55, replaced Hugo Chávez as president in 2013 after the founder of Venezuela’s socialist revolution died of cancer.

However, Maduro has led Venezuela into its worst economic crisis in modern history. Venezuela now suffers from food shortages, hyperinflation, and dwindling oil production – provoking massive migration out of the country.

Yet the opposition has been unable to seize the advantage.

Its coalition is made up of more than two dozen parties from all ideological stripes. They often bicker over strategy and have failed to win over many poor Venezuelans who still identify with the altruistic goals of the revolution.

These factors helped the Socialists sweep recent state and local elections even though polls show that Venezuelans overwhelmingly reject the government.

The opposition argues that the electoral playing field is skewed in the government’s favor. The National Electoral Council is stacked with Maduro allies while the government controls much of the media and far outspends the opposition during campaigns.

During meetings with government delegates in the Dominican Republic, opposition leaders had pushed for the election to be held in December – when presidential balloting traditionally takes place – and for the electoral council to be staffed with neutral officials.

However, Tuesday’s announcement practically guarantees that the balloting will be neither free nor fair, said Eugenio Martínez, a Caracas election analyst.

The opposition must now scramble to overcome its divisions and rally around a single candidate. Yet some of its most popular leaders – including Leopoldo López, Henrique Capriles, and Antonio Ledezma – have been, respectively, imprisoned, banned from running for office, and forced into exile.

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Javier Corrales, a Venezuela expert at Amherst College, insisted that the opposition still had a chance. “They have to pick the right candidate, get organized, be strategic, and have witnesses at the voting centers,” Corrales said. “But I don’t think that is unimaginable.”

Neither does Capriles, who narrowly lost to Maduro in the 2013 election. On Tuesday he tweeted: “The majority of Venezuelans loathe his government and his circle. If our people are allowed to decide, they are out.”