2010 Venezuelan Parliamentary Election

The 2010 parliamentary election in Venezuela took place on 26 September 2010 to elect the 165 deputies to the National Assembly. Venezuelan opposition parties, which had boycotted the previous election thus allowing the governing Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) to gain a two-thirds super majority, participated in the election through the Coalition for Democratic Unity (MUD). In 2007 the Fifth Republic Movement dissolved and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela was formed as the leading government party. Nationally, the popular vote was split equally between PSUV and MUD, but PSUV won a majority of the first-past-the-post seats and consequently retained a substantial majority in the Assembly, although falling short of both two-thirds and three-fifths super majority marks.Devereux, Chrlie and Corina Rodriguez Pons. ''Business Week'', 27 September 2010.
"Venezuela's Opposition Pushes Back Chavez in Vote".
/ref>Constitution of Venezuela, article 203 (page 75) http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/venezuela/constitucion_ingles.pdf

Of the 165 deputies, 110 were constituency representatives elected on a first-past-the-post, the system in 87 electoral districts, 52 elected on a party list system (two or three deputies per state of Venezuela, depending on population), and 3 seats were reserved for indigenous peoples, with separate rules.

Additionally, 12 representatives were chosen for the Latin American Parliament.

There was initially a dispute between alliances that participated in the election as to which alliance received a plurality of votes. Each coalition was allowed to invite 30 foreign officials to observe the elections.European Union, "Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the elections in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela", http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/cfsp/116787.pdf Organization of American States, "OAS Officials are Special Guests to Election Day in Venezuela", http://www.oas.org/OASpage/press_releases/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-349/10

Background

Electoral changes

Elections for the National Assembly of Venezuela in the 2000 and the 2005 were conducted under a weak mixed member proportional system, with 60% elected in first-past-the-post electoral districts and the remainder by closed party list proportional representation. CNN
Venezuela (Presidential)
accessed 27 September 2010 This was an adaptation of the system previously used for the Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies, which had been introduced in 1993, with a 50-50 balance between voting districts and party lists,Crisp, Brian F. and Rey, Juan Carlos (2003), "The Sources of Electoral Reform in Venezuela", in Shugart, Matthew Soberg, and Martin P. Wattenberg, ''Mixed-Member Electoral Systems - The Best of Both Worlds?'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. pp. 173–194(22) and deputies per state proportional to population, but with a minimum of three deputies per state.

For the 2010 election, the ''Ley Orgánica de Procesos Electorales (LOPE)'' (Basic law of electoral process) among other changes reduced the party list proportion to 30%. In addition, the law completely separated the district vote and the party list votes, creating a more parallel system. Previously, parties winning nominal district seats had had these subtracted from the total won under the proportional party list, which had encouraged parties to game the system by creating separate parties for the party list. Under the new law, in 2009, electoral districts were redefined in a way that has been accused of favouring the PSUV, particularly in giving more weight to votes in the countryside over those in the city.Romero, Simon. ''The New York Times'', 26 September 2010.
"Venezuelans Vote for Legislators".
/ref>''Latin American Herald Tribune'', 27 September 2010
"In Venezuela, Opposition Wins Vote Total, but Chavez Still Dominates Parliament".
/ref>

Electoral process

In August 2010 the CNE carried out vote simulations, with an average wait of 15–22 minutes. In August/September it also carried out a series of electoral fairs, providing 1500 vote machines in 11 cities for educational purposes, to allow voters to familiarize themselves with the process. As usual in Venezuela, the voting will take place on a non-work day, and the sale of alcohol will be banned starting the day prior to elections. Voting booth attendees are chosen at random by the CNE; for this election, over 400,000 were chosen. Over 80,000 participated in training, compared to 40,000 in 2005. Venezuelanalysis.com, 10 September 2010
Chavez Allowed to Campaign Says Venezuelan Electoral Council
/ref>

Four domestic NGOs registered 624 observers each. Unlike the election in 2005, major independent election observing organisations such as the Organization of American States, the European Union and the Carter Center were not invited to observe this election in a technical capacity. Guests from those bodies allowed to observe the final days of the election were not given the technical observation role they had been given in the past. Instead, each alliance participating in the election was permitted to bring "up to 30 witnesses from abroad."'' Miami Herald'', 21 September 2010
"Election observers coming to Venezuela -- what will they see?"
/ref> The European Union noted that "the Venezuelan National Electoral Council accredited more than 200 international guests to accompany the day of the election. No long-term international electoral observation missions participated." Foreign observers were warned in a full-page newspaper advertisement "not to interfere with the nation's internal affairs." An opposition spokesman said that "If observers were allowed to watch the campaign, they would have seen the abuse of power and of public resources and public media." The government's Roy Chaderton said that foreign observers were present and that comments like this from the opposition were "part of the media terrorism they like to practice".

The CNE monitors political advertisements during campaigns, and reported that for a 3-day period at the end of August, opposition ads made up 75.4% of the airtime given to such ads, across the five main channels Venevisión, Televen, Globovisión, Tves and Venezolana de Televisión. '' El Universal'', 2 September 2010
CNE: Oposición tiene 60,3% de la propaganda electoral en TV
/ref> Over half the total opposition ad time of around 80 minutes was on '' Globovisión''. President Hugo Chavez' weekly television program ''Aló Presidente'' was suspended during the election campaign (which officially began 25 August, one month before the election), until 3 October. A reporter for ''The Economist'' claimed that media controlled by the government gave "blanket coverage to the PSUV's campaign and token, hostile interviews to opposition candidates".''The Economist'', 23 September 2010
"Chávez grapples with a 50/50 nation".
/ref>

In early September, one member of the five-person CNE, the pro-opposition councillor Vicente Díaz, publicly accused Chavez of breaking campaign laws by using state-run television to "berate rivals and praise friends" during the election campaign. Chavez denied breaking the law, and said that Diaz could be prosecuted for making false accusations.Toothaker, Christopher. Associated Press, 2 September 2010
"Election official: Chavez breaking campaign rules".
/ref> Díaz requested the CNE open administrative proceedings, but after extensive internal discussion the CNE declined, and Díaz publicly "recognised Chavez's right to political expression as a citizen and also as president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela." The opposition electoral coalition, Coalition for Democratic Unity (MUD) rejected the CNE decision, and said it illustrated CNE's lack of independence and willingness to justify violation of electoral rules.

Campaign

A total of 6,465 candidates registered with the National Electoral Council by the June deadline