Venezuelans return to the polls on Sunday, May 25, to elect a new National Assembly, governors for 24 states, and regional legislative councils. This is the 32nd electoral event under the Bolivarian Revolution.
Our guide offers an overview of the process, the parties and candidates running, and some races to watch.
Overview, facts and figures
With their respective terms ending on January 5, 2026, the Venezuelan Constitution determines that a new National Assembly (AN) and regional authorities must be chosen this year. The unusually early date leaves room for other elections later in the year, including municipal contests and a potential constitutional reform.
Voters will elect 285 deputies for five-year terms. This includes 3 indigenous representatives, 50 national list parliamentarians, and 232 from states. Out of these, 133 will be elected via first-past-the-post systems in electoral circumscriptions, while the other 99 will come from regional lists.
In addition, the electorate will also pick governors for the 24 states and 260 members of regional legislative councils. Regional officials serve four-year terms.
According to Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), 21.5 million citizens are eligible to vote. The electoral authority will set up 27,713 voting booths in 15,736 polling stations across the country.
Who is on the ballot?
A total of 36 national political parties feature on the ballot alongside 10 regional ones and 6 indigenous organizations.
The Great Patriotic Pole (GPP) groups the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) and 12 allied organizations. It ran a hybrid process combining grassroots assemblies and leadership decisions to fill out its candidate lists.
Opposing the PSUV-led alliance is an assortment of center-right to right-wing outfits split into three main camps. The Democratic Alliance (AD) brings together 10 minor parties that originally broke with the US-backed opposition in 2019. A New Era (UNT) is the last holdover from the opposition’s Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) that won the 2015 legislative elections, and counts on allies such as newly-formed Unión y Cambio. Finally, the Lápiz alliance ruled out joining forces with other anti-government groups in order to instead field its own lists.
At the same time, far-right factions led by María Corina Machado have called for a boycott of the upcoming vote. The US-aligned sectors have maintained all their focus on their claim of victory in the July 28, 2024, elections that saw President Nicolás Maduro secure a third term in office. Opposition leaders have traded accusations of playing to the government’s agenda in what has become a familiar debate over whether or not to boycott the vote.
