Venezuela's Maduro Expected To Confirm Reelection Bid

Caracas, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Mar, 2024) Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro is expected to confirm Saturday that he will seek a third term in July 28 elections after 11 years in office marked by sanctions, economic collapse and accusations of widespread repression.

The ruling PSUV has said it will officially announce its candidate Saturday for elections from which Maduro's main rival -- the favorite in opinion polls -- has been excluded.

There had been no challenge to 61-year-old Maduro within the "Chavista" movement, in power for 25 years and named for the president's popular predecessor Hugo Chavez.

Since 2013, Maduro has presided over severe economic crisis, worsened by US sanctions, that has seen seven million people flee the country as GDP plummeted by 80 percent in a decade.

"I know that we have had it hard.

.. but what will come, from now to 2030, is progress," Maduro vowed this week at a political rally in Carupano in Venezuela's east.

Maduro has held on to power through a system of political patronage, and with backing from the military, and three key foreign allies: Cuba, Russia and China. He has consolidated power over parliament, the judiciary and other state institutions, while jailing and neutralizing critics and challengers.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who polls show would beat the incumbent in a fair race, has been disqualified by Maduro-aligned courts on charges of corruption widely dismissed as spurious, and for supporting Western sanctions against the regime.

She cannot hold public office for 15 years, nor can the man widely seen as her natural replacement, two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles.