Venezuela’s high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed pres­i­den­tial elec­tion will take place Ju­ly 28—the birth­day of the coun­try’s late fiery leader Hugo Chávez—of­fi­cials an­nounced Tues­day, plough­ing ahead with a tight cam­paign sea­son that deep­ens doubts over the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the op­po­si­tion’s lead­ing can­di­date as well as of in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers.

Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro is wide­ly ex­pect­ed to run for re-elec­tion. His gov­ern­ment ini­tial­ly ne­go­ti­at­ed de­tails of the elec­tion with a fac­tion of the op­po­si­tion backed by the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment, but dif­fer­ences be­tween the sides have grown over the past two months.

The date an­nounced by Na­tion­al Elec­toral Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Elvis Amoroso did, how­ev­er, meet at least one op­po­si­tion de­mand that the elec­tion be held in the sec­ond half of the year.

When that broad time­frame was agreed up­on by Maduro and his ad­ver­saries in Oc­to­ber, the in­ter­ven­ing months were meant to al­low cam­paigns to mo­bi­lize, of­fi­cials to up­date vot­er rolls, and in­ter­na­tion­al elec­toral ob­servers to plan and de­ploy a mis­sion.

Cru­cial­ly, the Oc­to­ber agree­ment, signed in the Caribbean is­land of Bar­ba­dos and fo­cused on con­di­tions meant to lev­el the play­ing field for the 2024 elec­tion, al­so called on both sides to “pro­mote the au­tho­riza­tion of all pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates and po­lit­i­cal par­ties” to par­tic­i­pate in the elec­tion as long as they com­ply with the law.

But in Jan­u­ary, the coun­try’s top court rat­i­fied an ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ci­sion ban­ning Maduro’s strongest ad­ver­sary this year, Maria Co­ri­na Macha­do, from run­ning for of­fice.

Amoroso, un­der his pre­vi­ous ca­pac­i­ty as the coun­try’s comp­trol­ler, signed the an­nounce­ment of Macha­do’s ban from of­fice last sum­mer. He did not ad­dress her can­di­da­cy dur­ing his na­tion­al­ly tele­vised an­nounce­ment Tues­day, just four days af­ter law­mak­ers pro­posed to the rul­ing par­ty-loy­al Na­tion­al Elec­toral Coun­cil more than 20 pos­si­ble op­tions, rang­ing from as soon as mid-April to as late as De­cem­ber.

Last month, the op­po­si­tion’s chief ne­go­tia­tor, Ger­ar­do Blyde, said the group favoured a De­cem­ber vote.

David Smilde, an ex­pert on Venezue­lan pol­i­tics at Tu­lane Uni­ver­si­ty, said Maduro’s gov­ern­ment seeks to thread the nee­dle with the Ju­ly 28 date, ful­fill­ing enough the Bar­ba­dos agree­ment to keep it alive “while push­ing on the op­po­si­tion to try to get it to split or ab­stain.”

“An ide­al out­come for Chav­is­mo would be for the op­po­si­tion to split or ab­stain, al­low­ing Maduro to win on a rel­a­tive­ly clean Elec­tion Day,” he said, re­fer­ring to the po­lit­i­cal move­ment start­ed by Chávez, Maduro’s men­tor and pre­de­ces­sor. “And with less than five months, this al­so puts in­ter­na­tion­al ob­ser­va­tion in a tight spot.”

In­ter­na­tion­al elec­toral ob­servers typ­i­cal­ly need sev­er­al months to pre­pare for an elec­tion.

Amoroso said cam­paign­ing will be al­lowed from Ju­ly 4-25.

The Uni­tary Plat­form and Maduro’s gov­ern­ment agreed in Oc­to­ber dur­ing talks in Bar­ba­dos that the elec­tion should be held in the sec­ond half of the year while not spec­i­fy­ing which month. The agree­ment earned Maduro re­lief from some eco­nom­ic sanc­tions im­posed by the U.S.

Macha­do has in­sist­ed through­out her cam­paign that vot­ers, not rul­ing-par­ty loy­al­ists, are the right­ful de­ci­sion-mak­ers of her can­di­da­cy. On Tues­day, she asked sup­port­ers gath­ered for a ral­ly in west­ern Venezuela for “calm and firm­ness” in the com­ing days, but she did not of­fer any ex­pla­na­tions on how she in­tends to over­come the ban against her.

Macha­do won an in­de­pen­dent­ly run pri­ma­ry held last year by the Uni­tary Plat­form, the U.S.-backed op­po­si­tion fac­tion. She won more than 90% of the vote, with more than 2 mil­lion vot­ers turn­ing out for the pri­ma­ry in­clud­ing in strong­holds of Maduro’s rul­ing par­ty.

Tues­day was the 11th an­niver­sary of Chávez death. Smylde said the rul­ing par­ty will use his birth­day to mo­bi­lize vot­ers.

While the op­po­si­tion’s can­di­date re­mains in doubt, Maduro will be seek­ing six more years in of­fice. His en­tire decade-long pres­i­den­cy has been marked by po­lit­i­cal, so­cial and eco­nom­ic cri­sis. Un­der his watch, mil­lions of Venezue­lans have fall­en in­to pover­ty and more than 7.4 mil­lion have mi­grat­ed.

Be­nig­no Alar­cón, po­lit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at the An­drés Bel­lo Catholic Uni­ver­si­ty of Cara­cas, said the tight sched­ule “promis­es to be full of big ques­tions” but the rul­ing par­ty is bet­ting on the crit­i­cism to even­tu­al­ly sub­side and not bring ma­jor con­se­quences like in the last elec­tion cy­cle, which led to crip­pling eco­nom­ic sanc­tions and the recog­ni­tion of an op­po­si­tion leader as the coun­try’s le­git­i­mate leader.

“Ev­i­dent­ly, the gov­ern­ment’s main con­cern is to get the op­po­si­tion can­di­date who was elect­ed in the pri­ma­ry, María Co­ri­na Macha­do, out of the way and re­duce any time to con­tin­ue the de­bate on her qual­i­fi­ca­tion or any­thing else,” he said. “That is ba­si­cal­ly what is be­hind this de­ci­sion.” —CARA­CAS, Venezuela (AP)

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Sto­ry by REGI­NA GAR­CIA CANO AND JORGE RUE­DA | As­so­ci­at­ed Press
Regi­na Gar­cia Cano re­port­ed from Mex­i­co City.