Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro will run for a third term in the July 28 elections, from which the state apparatus has ruled out his main rival - the favourite in opinion polls.
"We will go for another victory," the 61-year-old Maduro said, accepting the official nomination of his ruling PSUV party as his candidate after 11 years in power marked by sanctions, economic collapse and accusations of widespread repression.
There was no challenger from within the Chavista movement, which has been in power for 25 years and bears the name of Maduro's popular predecessor Hugo Chávez.
"I am here for the people, so today, on March 16 this year, 2024, I accept the presidential candidacy for the July 28 elections," the incumbent president said.
At the end of his third consecutive term, Maduro will have served 18 years as president of the once-prosperous South American country.
Since 2013, he has presided over a severe economic crisis, worsened by US sanctions, that has seen 7 million people flee the country and GDP fall 80% in a decade.
Backed by a system of political patronage, the military, and Cuba, Russia and China, he consolidated his power over parliament, the judiciary and other state institutions, and imprisoned and neutralised critics and challengers.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who opinion polls suggest would beat the incumbent president in a fair race, has been disqualified by pro-Maduro courts on corruption charges that are dismissed as baseless and for supporting Western sanctions against the regime. / BGNES
