Maduro triumphs in Venezuelan election boycotted by opposition

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s governing party has swept parliamentary and regional elections that were boycotted by the opposition.

Preliminary results released by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Monday showed that the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its allies won 82.68 percent of votes cast the previous day for seats in the National Assembly.

That result ensures that the party will maintain control of key levers of power, including the attorney general’s office and the country’s top court, whose members are elected by the 285-seat assembly.

CNE also said that 23 out of 24 state governor positions were won by the government flagging a setback for the opposition, which previously controlled four states.

Turnout in the elections was 8.9 million or roughly 42 percent of 21 million voters eligible to cast their ballots. CNE chief Carlos Quintero noted that was the same figure as in the 2021 elections.

However, the country’s main opposition leaders had urged voters to boycott the election in protest over July’s 2024 presidential election. The opposition insists that it won that race but authorities declared Maduro the winner.

Opposition figurehead Maria Corina Machado declared in a post on X late on Sunday that in some areas of the country, up to 85 percent of eligible voters snubbed the election, which she slammed as an “enormous farce that the regime is trying to stage to bury its defeat” in last year’s election.

Maduro, however, shrugged off the boycott.

“When the opponent withdraws from the field, we advance and occupy the terrain,” he said matter-of-factly.