CARACAS (Reuters) – The Venezuelan United Platform, a grouping of opposition parties in the South American country, on Monday said it will choose a 2024 presidential candidate in a primary next year.
The opposition – diminished by the exile and arrest of some of its leaders as well as in-fighting – has not held primaries in more than a decade.
The 2024 election, for which there is still no date, will be the first presidential contest in which the opposition is set to participate since 2013.
“From this moment we begin a deep process of consultation with the whole country with an end to building together this powerful mechanism to choose a candidate,” the group said in a statement.
Members of the ruling party of President Nicolas Maduro have said that the opposition must choose a candidate according to rules set out by the National Electoral Council, seen by critics as an arm of the government.
The Platform did not specify whether its primary would be conducted according to the council’s regulations.
The opposition participated last year in elections for governors and mayors, with the ruling party winning 19 governorships and the opposition 4.
(Reporting by Vivian Sequera and Mayela Armas; Writing Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Mark Porter)
