Venezuelan opposition chief urges parliamentary election boycott

CARACAS (AFP): Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado called Sunday for a boycott of 2025 parliamentary elections after last year’s presidential vote widely considered to have been stolen by Nicolas Maduro.

Much of the international community disputes Maduro’s claim to victory in July 28 elections the opposition says it can prove were won by its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.

“Going to vote again and again without respecting the results is not defending the (right to) vote, it is distorting the popular will,” Machado, who is in hiding, said in a video published on social media.

Venezuela is set to go to the polls this year to elect members of parliament, governors and mayors. No date has been set.

This comes as the United States, European Union, G7 and several democratic neighbors have refused to recognize Maduro’s claim to have won re-election to a third six-year term in last year’s vote.

The 62-year-old was sworn in on January 10 even as Washington offered a $25 million reward for Maduro’s arrest and sanctions were increased.

The opposition says its tally of results from the July vote showed a clear victory for 75-year-old Gonzalez Urrutia, who went into exile in Spain in September after a crackdown on dissent.

In 2020, the opposition boycotted parliamentary elections, having won a majority in the legislature five years earlier.

Maduro’s allies regained control of parliament and passed increasingly oppressive laws since then, according to rights groups.

The opposition had also boycotted 2018 presidential elections in which Maduro claimed re-election to a second term that was also rejected by most of the international community.