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Venezuela opposition will boycott election, and Maduro tightens his hold

Venezuela’s alliance of opposition parties declared on Wednesday that it would boycott the coming presidential election, saying the electoral system was rigged in favor of President Nicolás Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

The coalition’s announcement emerged from weeks of debate following the decision in January by the all-powerful Constituent Assembly to put the election on an accelerated timeline, a move denounced by the opposition. The date was cemented this month by the country’s electoral commission.

The coalition had been divided between those who argued that participating in the April 22 election would end in certain failure at the polls and legitimize Maduro’s rule, and those who insisted that participation was an opportunity, however remote, for change.

In a statement, the coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable, said the election was “premature” and lacked “proper conditions,” and called it “a show by the government to give an impression of legitimacy that it does not have in the midst of Venezuelans’ agony and suffering.”

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The announcement left Javier Bertucci, a little-known evangelical pastor, as the only confirmed candidate other than Maduro.

Maduro was defiant in response to the announcement, vowing to hold the election in April regardless of the boycott, and he raised the ante: He said he would ask the Constituent Assembly to call general elections for April 22 that would encompass not only the opposition-controlled National Assembly but also municipal and state legislative councils.

Should the opposition boycott those contests, too, Maduro and his party would essentially control nearly every elected office in the country.

Victory, he said, would ensure several years “of cleared road, without any elections, to arrange what has to be arranged in the economy.”

Luis Vicente León, president of the Venezuelan polling firm Datanálisis, said Maduro’s proposal amounted to a “total renovation of the institutions, knowing that there is no possibility of the opposition obtaining any relevant position.”

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The opposition alliance said it would reconsider its decision if certain conditions were guaranteed, including an election date in the second half of the year, a balanced electoral commission and the presence of international observers, among other demands.

“Otherwise, do not count on the Democratic Unity or the people to endorse what up to now is only a fraudulent and illegitimate simulation of a presidential election,” its statement said.

Maduro, who came to power in 2013 after the death of Hugo Chávez, remains deeply unpopular amid a worsening economic crisis, soaring poverty, rampant crime, international sanctions and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans seeking a better life abroad. But with control of the country’s legislative system, electoral machinery and highest court, Maduro has been unstoppable.

After outlasting violent street protests last year, he plowed ahead with the election of the Constituent Assembly and disempowered the opposition-controlled National Assembly.

His party then dominated regional elections, taking most of the nation’s governorships, and solidified its gains by sweeping municipal elections amid a boycott by the opposition alliance. International sanctions and condemnation have not appeared to slow his momentum.

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During his presidency, many of Maduro’s most popular adversaries in the opposition have either been barred from holding public office, imprisoned or driven into exile.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

ANA VANESSA HERRERO and KIRK SEMPLE © 2018 The New York Times

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