Opposition competes in Venezuelan elections, but Maduro wins again

Venezuelan elections are no simple affair. Government bans, opposition boycotts, questions over legitimacy, obscure legal controversies, wild swings in participation rates, and mass-scale migration out of the country make them quite hard to follow – and all this amid one of the worst economic crises that Latin America has seen in its history.

This week, the country elected governors for its 23 provinces, an election made particularly significant for being the first since 2015 in which most of the opposition participated.

The results, however, were not good news for critics of the Nicolás Maduro regime, with the opposition taking only three regions, with the winner of another two still under contention, and the government confirmed as the victor in the remaining 18 regions. Maduro-backed candidates also won 205 of 335 mayoral races.

The election saw the lowest turnout in recent history for gubernatorial races, with 42 percent of registered citizens showing up on the day – though these figures are still higher than in the 2020 parliamentary vote, which only saw 30 percent turnout after an opposition boycotted.

Key for government-backed candidates, who took 45 percent of the vote, was a divided opposition, with the Plataforma Unitaria and Alianza Democratica coalitions splitting the vote, along with smaller groups such as Fuerza Vecinal.

“A divided opposition did not get the results that the unhappy country was hoping for, despite going up against a government rejected by 80 percent of the people,” said Víctor Álvarez, a former minister...