By Rodrigo Acuña

Alborada: Latin America Uncovered

31 January 2021

Last month on 6 December, the multiparty coalition supporting Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro won 69 per cent of ballots cast in elections for the National Assembly. While over 100 parties took part in the contest, the majority of the opposition boycotted the vote – indeed, voter turnout was low, at 31 per cent.

Opposition moderates still accepted the election’s outcome and harshly critiqued those that called for a boycott. Speaking on the opposition network Globovisión, Bernabé Gutiérrez, general secretary for one of Venezuela’s oldest political parties, Acción Democrática, and new member for the National Assembly, said that ‘this opposition, represented in the new parliament, will not continue the ruckus of a parallel National Assembly, although I see and have heard that there are those that will pretend to legislate and direct the country from overseas.’ He added that what was missing from Juan Guaidó’s team was a ‘Minster of Defense’ – a mocking reference to that fact that, despite being recognised by the United States and its allies as the country’s legitimate head of state, Guaidó did not control Venezuela’s armed forces.