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Venezuelans hoping to become representatives in the national Constituent Assembly can now register, while nominations of candidates have been scheduled to take place between June 6 and 10, electoral authorities announced Tuesday.
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Tibisay Lucena, d irector of the National Electoral Council of Venezuela, known as CNE, detailed the timeline and opened the floor to questions about the new voting process during a press conference in Caracas.
The announcement comes after President Nicolas Maduro announced last week that the national Constituent Assembly, a process that will rewrite the Venezuelan Constitution, will be made up of 540 members — 364 regional representatives, 168 sector representatives and eight Indigenous representatives.
According to Lucena, the registration process is open until Thursday. Those interested should register online to download the appropriate forms. Afterwards they must collect enough signatures to amount to 3 percent of registered voters.
Applicants may either submit their forms to seek the nomination representing a region or a sector . Sectors have been divided up by career and social standing. These include fisherfolk, students, people with disabilities, Indigenous people, retirees and the business sector. Meanwhile, for the territorial representative positions, nominees will be chosen via the normal electoral process. At least one seat will be given for every 83,000 constituents and additional seat will be saved for each municipality.
Maduro announced the national Constituent Assembly earlier this year to initiate a democratic process to rewrite the country’s constitution and promote dialogue as solution to the intense political deadlock.
The opposition has rejected the process. Instead, right-wing leaders have called for an “escalation” of protests against the socialist government.
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