Electoral Environment Begins to Heat Up in Venezuela

Next presidential elections are scheduled to be held in Venezuela on 20 May 2018

Less than two months away from the presidential elections in Venezuela, the electoral environment has began to heat up, as contradictions grow among the opposition on how to face incumbent president Nicolas Maduro.

As the president oiled the machinery that should take him to win the reelection on May 20 by swearing in last Thursday the leaders of his political campaign, he called Command of the Simon Bolivar National Campaign, his opponents are engaged in political bickering, strifes and infighting and question one of their key candidates, Henri Falcon.

Maduro, the candidate for the Frente Amplio de la Patria, or Homeland Broad Front, has a solid lead in polls made public in the past weeks, despite an intensified media campaign and economic war from abroad and rightwing sectors against his government.

Recently, the leftwing hopeful reiterated his aspiration to win 10 million votes in the May 20 general elections.

On the other side, Falcon, who seems to be Maduro’s main rival on the political campaign trail, saw his support waned when key members of the Committee of Independent Electoral Political Organization, commonly know as Copei Party, refused to back him up.

Copei’s top leader, Walter Aranguren, told the media his party is not behind Falcon for backing him up is ‘supporting a candidacy that has turned its back on the national sentiment.’

Falcon, viewed as the most serious rival to Maduro, is under attack by several opposition leaders for having put himself forward as presidential candidate without winning the consensus of the rest of the opposing groups.