Venezuela’s ruling coalition, led by President Nicolas Maduro, has won the parliamentary and regional elections by a landslide, maintaining a significant majority in the powerful National Assembly, according to the country’s electoral authority.
Sunday’s legislative and gubernatorial elections were held as several opposition groups called for a boycott in response to what they described as fraudulent results of the July 2024 presidential vote. Maduro was declared the winner of the 2024 disputed vote.
Following the results, the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) will continue to control key institutions, such as the attorney general’s office and the supreme court, as their members are chosen by the 285-member assembly.
Here is what you need to know about parliamentary and regional elections:
What were the official results of the 2025 regional and legislative elections?
Preliminary results released by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Monday showed that the PSUV and its allies won 82.68 percent of the votes cast the previous day for seats in the National Assembly.
The ruling coalition also won 23 out of 24 state governor positions, the CNE said.
A coalition considered close to the ruling socialist party won 6.25 percent of the vote, while an opposition alliance won 5.17 percent, CNE rector Carlos Quintero said in a declaration broadcast on state television.
Maduro hailed the election results as a “victory of peace and stability” and said it “proved the power of Chavismo” – the left-wing, populist political movement founded by his predecessor, Hugo Chavez.
What did voters elect?
The CNE oversaw Sunday’s election for 260 state legislators, 285 members of the unicameral National Assembly and all 24 governors, including the newly created governorship purportedly established to administer Essequibo, a region long under dispute between Venezuela and neighbouring Guyana.
Opposition candidates won the governorship of Cojedes state, a fall from the four they won in 2021.
Why election in Essequibo, a disputed region near Guyana, was controversial?
The Venezuelan government revised the electoral boundaries to elect a governor and eight representatives for the Essequibo, an oil-rich region that Caracas disputes with Guyana in a colonial-era dispute.
The vote took place in a micro-district of 21,403 voters in Venezuela’s Bolivar state, on the Guyanese border. Caracas had specially created it for Sunday’s legislative and regional elections. There were no polling stations in the 160,000sq km (61,776sq miles) territory of Essequibo, administered by Georgetown.
Guyana has administered the region for decades, but Caracas has threatened to partially annex it – a threat that Maduro repeated on Sunday. The Guyanese government, before the vote, warned that participating in Venezuela’s election could amount to treason.
The Maduro government last year passed a law creating a new state in the disputed territory, despite the ongoing case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Venezuelan actions have come despite a 2023 court order asking Caracas to avoid any action that would change the status quo of the territory.
The Venezuelan government has said it does not recognise the court’s authority in the case.
How did the opposition respond to the results?
Opposition figurehead Maria Corina Machado declared in a post on X late on Sunday that in some areas of the country, up to 85 percent of eligible voters snubbed the election, which she slammed as an “enormous farce that the regime is trying to stage to bury its defeat” in last year’s election.
Edmundo Gonzalez, who is recognised by the United States and several other countries as the winner of the July 2024 presidential election, said, “We witnessed an event that attempted to disguise itself as an election, but failed to deceive the country or the world.”
“What the world saw today was an act of civic courage. A silent but powerful declaration that the desire for change, dignity, and a future remains intact,” he said in a post on X.
Meanwhile, another opposition faction, headed by two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles and Zulia state Governor Manuel Rosales, urged people to vote to avoid the opposition being cut out of all governance.
Capriles was elected to the National Assembly, while Rosales lost his governor’s seat.
What was the voter turnout, and what factors influenced it?
Turnout in the elections was 8.9 million, or roughly 42 percent of 21 million voters eligible to cast their ballots, according to the CNE.
However, the country’s main opposition leaders had urged voters to boycott the election in protest over the July 2024 presidential election.
What are the implications of these elections for Venezuela’s political landscape?
The results are a big boost for Maduro who will further consolidate power as the ruling coalition now exercises almost complete control over the democratic institutions.
It will also demoralise the opposition, which has been in a disarray, with the executive secretary of the opposition’s Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), Omar Barboza, stepping down in March. Barboza cited lack of unity as one of the reasons to quit his post weeks before the elections.
Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, reporting from Argentina, noted that during the campaign, the opposition had been divided on the boycott call, making it difficult to present a more forceful challenge against Maduro.
She added that most analysts have said they “could not guarantee if the elections were free and fair”. “They denounced the lack of international observers, among other things,” she said.
What’s next for Maduro?
Maduro’s success in recent elections comes despite the decline of the economy following years of mismanagement and international sanctions.
US President Donald Trump has recently revoked permission for oil giant Chevron to continue pumping Venezuelan crude, potentially depriving Maduro’s administration of a vital economic lifeline.
Licence to Chevron was given in 2022 under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, after Maduro agreed to work with the opposition towards a democratic election.
Washington has also started to deport Venezuelan immigrants, many of them to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Last week, the US Supreme Court revoked the deportation protection for some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants in the US.
