General election in Venezuela 2015
The parliamentary elections in Venezuela in 2015 took place on December 6, 2015. They were clearly won by the opposition party alliance Mesa de la Unidad Democrática , which was seen as a landslide victory.
initial situation
The parliamentary elections in Venezuela in 2010 had the following results:
- PSUV, PCV : 98
- MUD : 65
- PPT : 2nd
| Political party | be right | Share of votes | Seats |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) and Partido Comunista de Venezuela (PCV) |
5.42 million | 48.13% | 98 |
| Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) | 5.32 million | 47.22% | 65 |
| Patria Para Todos (PPT) | 0.35 million | 3.14% | 2 |
| total | 11.6 million | 165 |
The government has set the election date for December 6th. This date is symbolic: on December 6, 1998 Hugo Chávez was elected as president for the first time. Its left-wing populist party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (or its predecessor organizations), has since determined politics in Venezuela.
The political mood before the election was influenced by Venezuela's massive economic crisis , which is believed to be a consequence of economic policy and the drop in oil prices . This resulted in the partly violent protests in 2014 , in which 43 people were killed. The polls predicted a victory for the opposition, which started with a "tarjeta única" (unified list). The opposition also feared fair elections with regard to the imprisonment of a number of leading opposition politicians such as Leopoldo López (chairman of Voluntad Popular ) and Antonio Ledezma (mayor of the capital Caracas), but the government rejected their demand for international election observers . In February 2015, 33 of the 76 mayors of the opposition camp faced criminal proceedings.
Suffrage
The right to vote was revised. The National Assembly should now have 167 members. 113 MPs are elected in 87 constituencies according to majority voting. 51 seats will be allocated according to proportional representation in the 23 states of Venezuela and the capital district . The D'Hondt procedure is used as the seat allocation procedure . Furthermore, three mandates are planned for the indigenous population.
According to critics, the constituencies are tailored in such a way that the government camp should benefit from them. In the 2010 parliamentary elections, this meant that although the PSUV and the opposition alliance received almost the same number of votes, the ruling party got more than three fifths of the seats. Four of the five members of the supreme electoral commission belonged to the Chavistas camp.
A number of opposition politicians, such as former governor Pablo Pérez , former MPs María Corina Machado and former mayors Daniel Ceballos and Enzo Scarano , were deprived of their right to stand by the government's audit office.
Election campaign
The government camp relied heavily on election gifts. Among other things, President Maduro announced that he would be "giving away" one million tablet computers. Before the election, the government distributed 37,643 computers, pork thighs for the holiday roast, gave away 3,380 new taxis, handed over 1,192 apartments to their new owners and awarded additional grants.
The election campaign was overshadowed by the murder of trade unionist and opposition politician Luis Manuel Díaz ( AD ) at an election rally on November 26 in Guárico state . The opposition claimed there had been a total of seven violent attacks against them. Parts of the opposition camp directly blamed President Maduro for the murder, while others said that Maduro had encouraged the perpetrators with his rhetorical attacks against the opposition. The president, however, classified the murder as a settlement among rival criminal gangs.
Survey
Result
| Political party | be right | Share of votes | Seats | change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) | 7,707,422 | 56.3% | 109 | 45 |
| Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) | 5,599,025 | 40.9% | 55 | -41 |
| Seats for indigenous people | 3 | ± 0 | ||
| total | 14,385,322 | 100.0% | 167 |
Source: National Electoral Commission
Breakdown of the distribution of seats by parties:
| Political party | Seats |
|---|---|
| opposition | 112 |
| Primero Justicia (PJ) | 33 |
| Acción Democrática (AD) | 25th |
| Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) | 18th |
| Voluntad Popular (VP) | 14th |
| La Causa Radical (Causa R) | 4th |
| Movimiento Progresista de Venezuela (MPV) | 4th |
| Cuentas Claras | 2 |
| Avanzada Progresista | 2 |
| Proyecto Venezuela (PRVZL) | 2 |
| Vente Venezuela (Vente) | 1 |
| Gentle Emergent | 1 |
| Alianza Bravo Pueblo (ABP) | 1 |
| Non-party | 2 |
| Indigenous people | 3 |
| government | 55 |
| Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) | 52 |
| Partido Comunista de Venezuela (PCV) | 2 |
| Vanguardia Republicana | 1 |
Source: El Universal
The three representatives of the indigenous peoples are close to the MUD, which results in a two-thirds majority for the alliance with a total of 112 seats.
This means that in future the parliamentary majority can prevent presidential decrees, introduce constitutional reforms, dismiss judges at the Supreme Court and the Attorney General and initiate referenda on legislative projects. A referendum on an early end of Maduro's term of office (which would actually last until 2019) is also possible. This accepted the election result and called on his ministers to resign.
At the end of December 2015, the government-dominated Supreme Court issued an injunction to invalidate the mandates of four elected MPs in the state of Amazonas. This affects three MPs from the opposition and one from the ruling PSUV. This would mean that the MUD would no longer have a two-thirds majority. The opposition spoke of a legal coup and pointed out that neither the route prescribed for this measure nor the deadlines had been met. The MPs concerned said they wanted to accept their mandates.
At the first constituent session of parliament on January 5, 2016, the political division in the country became clear again. The members of the governing parliamentary group left the session and accused the newly elected President of Parliament, Henry Ramos Allup, of breaking the rules. They boycotted the parliamentary session again after Allup swore in the controversial MPs at the first regular session on January 6th. The government declared that it would no longer recognize the future resolutions of the parliament as they were unlawful. By virtue of the special powers granted by the previous parliament, President Maduro promulgated a series of laws intended to restrict the power of parliament. The core is the convening of the Parliament of the Communes , a parallel parliament that was incorporated into the constitution under Chavez and which had never met before. The representatives in this parliament are appointed by the municipalities; here the government would have a majority. On January 11th the Supreme Court declared all resolutions of the parliament in which the disputed MPs were involved, to be null and void. Then the three controversial sworn in resigned from their office in order to enable parliament to act again. The opposition lost a two-thirds majority. At the beginning of May 2016, the necessary signatures for the first step for the recall referendum in Venezuela in 2016 were handed over. This, like the local and regional elections in 2016, was stopped by the Supreme Court.
The resolutions of the parliament were regularly overturned by the Supreme Court. On March 30, 2017, the Supreme Court declared all resolutions of parliament to be generally ineffective and lifted the immunity of parliamentarians. This disempowerment of the National Assembly by the Supreme Court marks the official end of the separation of powers in Venezuela.
observer
The opposition asked for observers from the United Nations , the Organization of American States (OAS) or the EU to participate , but the government refused. In mid-October the Brazilian government decided not to send any official observers to Venezuela. The conditions for independent work are not given.
Three former presidents of Costa Rica have asked the current government to send international observers from the United Nations, the EU or the OAS to Venezuela.
EU
Three MEPs visited Venezuela at the beginning of November to unofficially investigate the situation. The Venezuelan government had so far refused the participation of EU observers from various parties. Ramón Jáuregui , from the Spanish PSOE party, said that there has been no election rigging in Venezuela, but that there has been a blatant abuse of power to give the ruling party an advantage.
OAS
On November 10, 2015, the Secretary of the Organization of American States wrote to Tibisay Lucena, Chair of the Venezuelan Electoral Council, saying that the Venezuelan authorities would allow unfair conditions in the upcoming elections.
Plan República
In Venezuela, the elections are logistically organized by the military. The opposition has criticized this, saying that the elections should primarily be a civilian process.
UNASUR
An international delegation from the Union of South American Nations will observe the elections.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tjerk Brühwiller: Political landslide in Venezuela - Opposition wins the parliamentary elections. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (online), December 7, 2015.
- ^ Opposition landslide victory in Venezuela - Maduro admitted defeat. ORF.at, October 7, 2015.
- ↑ Landslide victory for Venezuela's opposition . DW, December 7, 2015.
- ↑ Chavismo before the end? , Tagesschau.de, December 6, 2015
- ↑ Venezuela: Maduros Preservation Maneuver , DiePresse, December 28, 2015
- ^ Government occupies supermarkets , NZZ, February 3, 2015
- ↑ Thomas Jäger, Anna Daun, Daniel Lambach, Carmen Lopera, Bea Maass, Britta Margraf: The tragedy of Colombia: State collapse, violent markets and drug economy; Springer-Verlag 2008, ISBN 9783531905686 , page 246
- ↑ Alexandra Ulmer: Venezuela to hold parliamentary election on December 6; Reuters of June 22, 2015, online
- ^ Matthias Rüb: Elections in Venezuela - Please don't look now; in: FAZ of July 31, 2015, online
- ^ Daniel Pardo: Venezuela charges Caracas mayor Ledezma over 'conspiracy' . BBC , February 21, 2015, accessed February 22, 2015.
- ↑ avn.info.ve
- ↑ Tjerk Brühwiller: Caracas in financial straits - oil price plunges Venezuela into misery. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (online), January 28, 2015.
- ↑ "Pressure on Venezuela's Opposition Increases"; in: Deutsche Welle from July 18, 2015; on-line
- ↑ Andreas Fink: Nice presents. In: Tages-Anzeiger (online), December 4, 2015.
- ↑ Elections in Venezuela - Chávez 'heirs tremble for power. N-tv.de, December 6, 2015.
- ^ Opposition members shot dead at election rally in Venezuela. In: Die Welt (Online), November 27, 2015
- ↑ Wolfgang Kunath: Venezuela - Murder in the election campaign. In Frankfurter Rundschau (online), November 28, 2015.
- ↑ Divulgación Elecciones Parlamentarias - CNE , December 8, 2015.
- ↑ Integración de la Asamblea Nacional por partido político. ( Memento from July 31, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) In: El Universal (Online), December 10, 2015.
- ↑ Official election result in Venezuela: Head of State Maduro calls on his ministers to resign. In: Spiegel Online , December 9, 2015.
- ^ Anne-Katrin Mellmann: Parliamentary elections in Venezuela - Opposition gets two-thirds majority. Tagesschau.de, December 9, 2015.
- ↑ dispute over three mandates; in TAZ from January 4, 2016, online
- ^ Carl Moses: Iconoclasm in Caracas; in: FAZ of January 9, 2016, p. 6
- ↑ Venezuela: Supreme Court paralyzes parliamentary work; in Spiegel online, online
- ↑ NZZ, December 14, 2015, page 2
- ↑ disempowerment of parliament in Venezuela; in: TAZ of March 31, 2017
- ↑ MUD insiste en que OEA, ONU y UE acompañen comicios (El Universal)
- ↑ Government of Brazil will not send observers to Venezuela (Diário do Poder)
- ↑ Expresidentes piden observación internacional (El Nacional)
- ↑ Eurodiputado sobre Venezuela (El Universal)
- ↑ Letter from the OAS to Tibisay Lucena (in Spanish)
- ↑ Opposition observers were kicked out of an election center by the military during exercises for the elections (El Nacional) ( Memento from October 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Venezuelan Elections to Be Observed by UNASUR Electoral Mission
