Venezuela opposition banned from running in 2018 election

Supporters of Venezuela’s President Maduro at a past rally. [Photo: Courtesy]

Venezuela’s main opposition parties have been barred from taking part in next year’s presidential election. This was a directive straight from Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro.

He said that only parties which took part in Sunday's mayoral polls would be able to contest the presidency.

Leaders from the Justice First, Popular Will and Democratic Action parties boycotted the vote and said the electoral system is biased.

Venezuela’s opposition coalition scoffed at Sunday’s vote as a Pyrrhic victory for Maduro. “Irregularities and low turnout characterized the vote,” said the coalition, which is demanding reforms to the electoral system for the 2018 vote.

President Maduro insists the Venezuelan system is entirely trustworthy.

In a speech on Sunday, he said the opposition parties had "disappeared from the political map".

"A party that has not participated today and has called for the boycott of the elections can't participate anymore", he said.

In October, the three main opposition parties announced they would be boycotting Sunday's vote to elect mayors in more than 300 towns and cities.

They said the vote served what they called President Maduro's dictatorship.

President Maduro's governing Socialist Party is expected to win the largest number of votes in the mayoral elections, despite a worsening economic crisis characterised by shortages of basic goods and soaring inflation.

The 55-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez, enjoying a political breather after a year of ferocious domestic protests and damaging foreign sanctions, said the government had won at least 90 percent of the 335 mayorships in Sunday’s election.

The elections left Maduro favorite to be the socialists’ candidate in next year’s presidential race, despite the ambitions of rivals within government and an economic crisis that has pummeled the OPEC nation since his 2013 election.

“We’re ready to compete!” he told cheering supporters in a Caracas square shortly before midnight on Sunday, next to a statue of Venezuela’s independence hero Simon Bolivar.

He also declared fixing Venezuela’s broken economy a priority. But opponents and even some government dissenters say it is his stubborn adherence to Chavez-era economic policies - such as currency controls - that is to blame for the mess.

Venezuela’s 30 million people are enduring one of the worst economic meltdowns in Latin American history. Millions are skipping meals, missing medicines, and lining up for hours at shops during acute shortages and crippling inflation.