23-05-19 Latin American Weekly Report

Venezuela’s de facto president Nicolás Maduro marked the anniversary of
his re-election on 20 May by tabling a proposal to bring forward legislative
elections, which are constitutionally due in December 2020. “Let’s see who
wins,” Maduro said. The opposition figurehead and widely recognised
interim president, Juan Guaidó, rejected the proposal as farcical. The
totally uneven playing field upon which elections are contested in
Venezuela, with a biased referee in the form of a national electoral council
(CNE) serving as a pliant appendage of the Maduro government was, after
all, the main reason why the opposition refused to take part in the presidential
elections a year ago. And the only elections it has any interest in
seeing brought forward are presidential not legislative.