Caracas, Feb. 21, 2025 (Lusa) - Manuel Teixeira, leader of Venezuela's centre-left UNT party and one of the country's most prominent figures of Portuguese descent, on Friday called for all parties to take part in the regional and parliamentary elections scheduled for 25 May - a different stance from that taken by Venezuela's best-known opposition leader.
"Venezuela's democratic alternative must defend at the ballot box the majority it has painstakingly built up in recent years," said Teixeira during an interview on the 'A Tiempo' programme on the private television channel IVC.
The appeal from Teixeira - a prominent member of Venezuela's large community of Portuguese nationals and people of Portuguese descent - comes at a time when several political parties and opposition leaders have called for the opposition not to take part in the elections, because the National Electoral Council (CNE) has not yet released the full minutes of the presidential elections of 28 July 2024, which gave victory to Nicolás Maduro, but whose results the opposition is contesting.
"We have to participate and we're obliged to participate, especially when we say we're in the majority," said the UNT leader. "Those who are winning doesn't leave the ring. Nobody is turning over a new leaf as some say; on the contrary, we have to write more pages."
Teixeira insisted that "participating does not mean turning the page, but rather fighting for the political paths that are established in the Constitution.
"At the UNT we are fervent defenders of the vote as an instrument of struggle," he stressed, considering that the recent decision by the CNE to postpone the elections, which were originally scheduled for 27 April, by almost one month "will give the democratic forces more time to organise themselves better and to convince those who still think it's a good idea to abstain to vote."
Teixeira also argued that it is important for the opposition to have elected representatives in Venezuela's next parliament, a body that has the power to appoint other powers vital to the development of the country's democratic life.
"The National Assembly appoints the Supreme Court of Justice and the CNE is the one that swears in [the president] to the constitutional mandate," he noted. "In addition, there is a clear call for constitutional reform. That's why we have to vote, our fight is to defend democracy and the vote as we know it."
On 19 February, the CNE postponed the next regional and parliamentary elections to 25 May, from 27 April.
According to the president of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso, the elections were rescheduled "at the request of different actors in the democratic life of the country who have decided to participate fully and actively in the electoral process."
According to the CNE, all parties and candidates taking part in this year's elections must sign a document in which they commit to respecting and abiding by the "results issued by the National Electoral Council as the constitutional power of the Republic" - without specifying whether they will be verified with a detailed publication of the results or with the minutes.
The leader of the opposition, María Corina Machado, announced two days later that until the results of the presidential elections "come into force" it is not appropriate to take part in "elections of any kind." She continues to insist that the winner was Edmundo González Urrutia rather than the incumbent, Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro was sworn in on 10 January in parliament as President of Venezuela for a third term (2025-2031).
FPG/ARO // ARO.
Lusa
