Elections in Venezuela

Elections in Venezuela are held at a national level for the President of Venezuela as head of state and head of government, and for a unicameral legislature. The President of Venezuela is elected for a six-year term by direct election plurality voting, and is eligible for re-election. The National Assembly (Asamblea Nacional) has 165 members (diputados), elected for five-year terms using a mixed member majoritarian system. Elections also take place at state level and local level. Since 1998, elections in Venezuela have been automated (using touch-screen DRE voting machines which provide a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail), and administered by the National Electoral Council. The voting age is 18, and (as of 2011) 95% of eligible voters are legally registered Venezuela has a multi-party system, with numerous parties. The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, PSUV) was created in 2007, uniting a number of smaller parties supporting Hugo Chávez' Bolivarian Revolution with Chávez' Fifth Republic Movement. PSUV and its fore-runners have held the Presidency since 1998. The Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, MUD), created in 2008, unites much of the opposition. Hugo Chávez, the central figure of the Venezuelan political landscape since his election to the Presidency in 1998 as a political outsider, died in office in early 2013, and was succeeded by Nicolás Maduro, initially as interim President, before winning election in April 2013. In the election of May, 2018 Maduro's re-election was considered as a fraud and was not recognised internationally leading Juan Guaido, as president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, to constitutionally act as Venezuela's interim president. On 18 April 1810, agents of the Spanish Regency arrived in the city of Caracas. After considerable political tumult, the local nobility announced an extraordinary open hearing of the cabildo (the municipal council) on 19 April.