Venezuela: Pro-Gov’t Alliance Sweeps Mayoral Contest, Opposition Retains Strongholds

Caracas, July 28, 2025 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Socialist Party-led Great Patriotic Pole (GPP) emerged with a sweeping majority of municipal offices following the July 27 elections in Venezuela.

The country’s National Electoral Council (CNE) presented a first-results bulletin on Sunday night, reporting that the GPP had secured 280 mayors out of 304 races, with irreversible leads. 

The figure represents a significant increase from the 212 mayoralties won by the pro-government alliance in 2021, with the total still expected to increase once the final 31 contests are settled. The GPP had won 309 municipalities in 2017, in a contest boycotted by most of the opposition.

Sunday’s contest also saw voters select 2,402 local councillors, 1,420 from party lists and the remaining as first-past-the-post candidates. The preliminary results will likewise see the GPP hold overwhelming majorities in municipal assemblies. Indigenous communities will pick an additional 69 local legislators in accordance with their traditions.

CNE President Elvis Amoroso reported that 6.27 million people voted on Sunday, representing around 29 percent of the electorate, with 82 percent of polling stations tallied. The figure is virtually on a par with the turnout in the May 25 regional and legislative contests, but below the 42 percent participation in the previous municipal elections.

Cármen Meléndez easily won a new term in the Libertador municipality of Caracas and thanked the “brave people” of the Venezuelan capital for their support. According to the CNE, Meléndez received 86 percent of the vote in the most lopsided result in the municipality’s history.

“Today we have made history, as the people decide who is going to govern,” Meléndez said in the celebrations alongside President Nicolás Maduro. “We will celebrate this victory before getting back to work, out on the streets with communities.”

For his part, Maduro forecast that the ruling coalition would finish with around 285 mayor posts in what he termed a “historic victory for the Bolivarian Revolution.”

The Venezuelan leader also congratulated opposition politicians for their victories in around 50 towns and cities and invited them to “work together for peace, democracy and national coexistence.”

Opposition retains strongholds

Venezuelan opposition forces lost more than half of the municipalities they had won in 2021, when most parties returned to the ballot following years of boycotts. Far-right forces led by María Corina Machado reiterated calls for abstention, while other opposition forces faced splits ahead of Sunday’s vote.

However, anti-government alliances managed to retain their traditional strongholds in the wealthy East Caracas municipalities. Gustavo Duque and Darwin González from Fuerza Vecinal will get new four-year terms as Chacao and Baruta mayors, respectively, while Fernando Melena from the Ecological Party was declared the winner in El Hatillo.

In contrast, the GPP took back some important seats it had previously lost. Giancarlo Di Martino and Eneas González recovered the Maracaibo (Zulia state) and Santiago Mariño (Nueva Esparta state) mayoralties for the Socialist Party (PSUV), respectively.

The pro-government alliance reportedly secured 23 out of the 24 state capitals, with San Carlos in Cojedes the only exception. According to PSUV sources, who asked to remain anonymous, the opposition Vamos Vamos Cojedes party will govern all nine municipalities in the state. 

Cojedes, a rural state that was once a Chavista bastion, has become one of the opposition’s main footholds in the country. In the May regional elections, Alberto Galíndez was picked to serve a second term in the only governor’s seat retained by the opposition.

Communities pick local state-funded projects

Sunday’s municipal vote was held alongside the third National Popular Consultation of 2025. The mechanism, introduced by the Maduro government in 2024, allows communities to discuss local priorities in assemblies before putting up to seven project proposals to a vote. The winning initiative receives US $10,000 in state funding, with different institutions also backing second-place projects in several cases.

Sunday’s consultation was focused on the Venezuelan youth, with the project options chosen by local committees of citizens aged 15 to 35. Some of the more common proposals included sports and recreation facilities and economic endeavors.

In El Panal Commune in West Caracas, residents picked the refurbishment of a sports facility as the winning project. In the Lanceros Atures Commune in Lara state, voters chose the initiative of setting up communal stores run by the youth. For their part, residents of the Che Guevara Commune in Mérida state decided to fund a transportation unit to serve local schools.

Edited by José Luis Granados Ceja in Mexico City, Mexico.