Government in Venezuela

  • Venezuela's socialists threaten opposition's landmark majority

    VENEZUELA, 2016/01/07 The United Socialist Party of Venezuela filed a legal challenge against the election of eight opposition lawmakers in a move that could threaten the opposition's two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, the country's highest court said on Tuesday. Before this month, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), a coalition of opposition parties, won 112 of 167 seats in a landmark victory at legislative polls, striking a major blow to the socialist "revolution" initiated by the late President Hugo Chavez in 1999. In a move that could transaction a massive blow to the opposition's super majority, Venezuela's socialists have filed legal complains against eight lawmakers. Opposition lawmakers have warned of an "attempted judicial coup."
  • Opposition ends decades of socialist rule in Venezuela

    VENEZUELA, 2016/01/07 For the first time in nearly two decades, an opposition party took control of Venezuela's parliament on Tuesday. However, with three lawmakers suspended over allegations of electoral fraud, President Nicolas Maduro's opponents failed to gain the supermajority they had hoped for. The hours leading up to the first session of the newly elected National Assembly saw intense quarreling between the opposition coalition MUD party and Maduro's socialist PSUV, prompting the PSUV deputies to stage a walkout immediately after their swearing-in.
  • Assessing Venezuela’s Elections: The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent

    VENEZUELA, 2015/12/16 The streets of Caracas were eerily quiet late Sunday evening (December 6) as the city, and indeed the whole of Venezuela, anxiously awaited the results of the critical legislative elections. Everyone knew the vote would be close: the polls had indicated as much in the weeks leading up to the elections, with a lot of experts predicting a victory for the right wing opposition party Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD). Traveling throughout the capital, and particularly in the poor and working class neighborhoods, however, the mood was optimistic, with most Chavistas fully expecting to carry the day and maintain their control of the National Assembly. In the 23 January neighborhood, a stronghold of the ruling Socialist Party (PSUV) and a hotbed of radical activism and resistance, local party and community leaders were upbeat as they showed me around, pointing out the gains made in the years of Chavista policy: each home presently having a cooking gas connection, improved sewage systems, guaranteed government pensions, low-cost government housing, part a lot of other tangible gains.
  • Maduro takes the oath of office

    VENEZUELA, 2013/04/22 The last minute development came next Maduro flew to a UNASUR summit in Peru Thursday night where he received the group’s support for his new government hours formerly he was to be sworn in to succeed the late Hugo Chavez who died of cancer March 5. Presidents from across the region, who convened for the extraordinary session on the political impasse in Venezuela, released a statement early Friday saying it “congratulated President Nicolas Maduro for ... his election as president.”