Venezuela to hold parliamentary elections in December
Venezuela will hold elections found in December to renew the National Assembly, the only institution found in opposition hands, the electoral authority announced Tuesday.
Candidates will contest an expanded quantity of seats in the new legislature, which will boost from 167 to 277, said Indira Alfonzo, the president of the recently appointed National Electoral Council.
"We unanimously debated and created the special rules which will govern this December's parliamentary elections," Alfonzo said, announcing the upsurge in seats. She did not specify a date for the poll.
The opposition led by Juan Guaido, who's named interim president by some 60 countries, has accused President Nicolas Maduro's government of wanting to hold elections without meeting "the minimum conditions of transparency."
The primary opposition parties had already announced a boycott of the polls, and Maduro was accused by the United States of attempting to rig the election by naming a regime-friendly electoral authority.
The US is among the dozens of countries formally backing National Assembly speaker Guaido that won't recognize Maduro on the lands that his 2018 re-election was rigged.
Maduro, who all succeeded former president Hugo Chavez after his death in 2013, has ruled with a great iron fist and presided over the economic collapse of his oil-rich country.
He has frustrated several efforts to unseat him, including a failed uprising called by Guaido, and crucially retains the support of the powerful military.
Maduro welcomed the electoral authority's announcement, adding that his Socialist Party has already been "working" with allied institutions to nominate candidates.
"We will plan the birth of a fresh National Assembly," he explained, speaking on the official television station VTV.
"We won't lend ourselves to farces, as we did not do in-may 2018."
With the opposition marginalized, the federal government includes a free hand to restore control of the legislature, which it lost in December 2015 when the opposition routed Maduro's Socialist Party, winning 112 of the 167 seats.
The National Assembly is the only government institution in opposition hands.
Its vitality however is largely symbolic, having been usurped by the all-powerful Constituent Assembly, a separate overall body created by Maduro and stacked with authorities supporters.--AFP
