Parliamentary elections were held in Venezuela on 6 December 2015 to elect the 164 deputies and three indigenous representatives of the National Assembly. They were the fourth parliamentary elections to take place after the 1999 constitution, which abolished the bicameral system in favour of a unicameral parliament, and the first to take place after the death of President Hugo Chávez. Despite predictions from the opposition of a possible last-minute cancellation, the elections took place as scheduled, with the majority of polls showing the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) holding a wide lead over the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its wider alliance, the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP).

The political landscape leading up to the elections was heavily influenced by the severe economic crisis faced by the country, as well as a series of protests that took place in 2014, after which former Chacao mayor and leader of Popular Will, Leopoldo López, was detained and sentenced to 14 years in prison. The scarcity of basic goods and high inflation were the central topics of discussion, with each party blaming their opponent as the cause. Introducing economic policies to counter the crisis, as well as granting amnesty to political prisoners, was the main campaign pledge of the MUD. The ruling PSUV, on the other hand, ran a campaign focused on overcoming what they called an "economic war" led by the right-wing against the Venezuelan people, as well as defending the legacy of Chávez and the social policies introduced during his presidency.

The result was a decisive defeat for the Chavismo, which lost control of the Assembly for the first time since 1999. The MUD, composed of politicians opposed to the government of both Chávez and his successor, won 109 seats, and with the support of the three indigenous representatives, gained a supermajority of 112 seats against 55 won by the GPP. In terms of popular vote, the MUD received 7.7 million votes, an increase of 2.4 million from the 2010 elections, becoming the most voted party in Venezuelan electoral history. In comparison, the GPP only managed to gain an additional 200,000 votes, to total 5.6 million votes.

Background Since the 1999 Constitutional Assembly elections, the National Assembly was dominated by alliances supportive of President Hugo Chávez. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, most opposition parties decided to withdraw, resulting in all seats being won by the Fifth Republic Movement and other parties supportive of Chávez. For the 2010 elections, an alliance of opposition parties was formed by the Democratic Unity Roundtable to contest the elections, and managed to win 64 seats. The PSUV, which was an alliance formed by Chávez from the Fifth Republic Movement and a number of smaller parties, won 96 seats, maintaining their majority, but lost their two-thirds and three-fifths supermajority. Fatherland for All, a small left-wing party, won two seats. After Chávez's death in 2013, his hand-picked successor Maduro was narrowly elected president, continuing Chávez' ideological influence. In 2015, the Democratic Unity Roundtable alliance aimed to improve its result from last time and end the incumbent PSUV government, while Maduro said he had faith in the voters giving the government a large majority.

Protests

In 2014, a series of protests and demonstrations began in Venezuela. The protests have been attributed to inflation, violence and shortages in Venezuela. The protests have been largely peaceful, though some have escalated and resulted in violence from both protesters and government forces. The government has accused the protests of being motivated by 'fascists' opposition leaders, capitalism and foreign influence, and has itself been accused of censorship, supporting groups called colectivos using violence against protesters and politically motivated arrests.

Electoral system Starting from 2015, the 167 members of the National Assembly were elected by a mixed majoritarian system; 113 members were elected by plurality block voting in 87 constituencies. A total of 51 seats were elected by closed list proportional representation based on the 23 states and the Capital District. Seats were allocated using the d'Hondt method. The remaining three seats were reserved for indigenous peoples, and were elected by the community.

The opposition coalition held primaries on 17 May in 33 of the 87 electoral districts, choosing candidates for 42 seats; 125 additional candidates were expected to be hand-picked by 'consensus' among party leaders, though the rules were later changed to require 40% of opposition candidates to be women and barred some popular opposition candidates from running, a move that experts called unconstitutional. The PSUV held primaries in all 87 electoral districts on 28 June with the Bolivarian government stating there was a participation of 3,162,400 voters, though some observing the primaries noticed a large decrease of voters to less than 1 million participating, or about 10% of PSUV members.

Opinion polls Graphical summary

Poll results are listed in the tables below in chronological order and using the date the survey's fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication. If such date is unknown, the date of publication is given instead. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed in bold, and the background shaded in the leading party's colour.

Polling firm Fieldwork date Samplesize PSUV/GPP MUD Others Don't knowLead IVAD 29 September 2014 800 27.6% 45.2% – 27.2%17.6% Consultores 21 21 September – 2 October 2014 1000 33% 48% –15% Datanálisis October 2014 1293 21.0% 38.9% 12.9% 17.5%17.9% Datanálisis November 2014 1300 18.8% 39.8% 15.5% 17.5%21% VARIANZAS 8–23 December 2014 1200 30.3% 43.9% 4.9% Neither 20.9% 11.2% Don't know, 7.4% It depends, 2.3 % Won't vote13.6% Datanálisis January 2015 1000 17.3% 45.9% 13.8% 17.4%28.6% Keller y Asociados January 2015 1200 44% 56% – –12% Meganalisis 25 January 2015 – 21.0% 29.0% – 26.8%8% Datanálisis February 2015 ? 22.5% 59.6% 17.9% –37.1% ICS 10–20 February 2015 1300 43.6% 31.6% – 24.8% 12% DatinCorp 8 February 2015 1200 23.83% 47.83% – 17%No vote (no votaría)24% Datanálisis March 2015 1000 19.0% 42.6% 8.8% 21.3%23.6% Keller y Asociados 26 February – 13 March 2015 1200 31% 42% 11% 16%11% Datanálisis April 2015 1000 25.0% 45.8% 6.5% 16.5%20.8% VARIANZAS 19 March – 2 April 2015 1200 33.7% 46.1% 7.8% 12.5%12.4% UCAB/Delphos 10–25 April 2015 1200 15.5% 39.2% – 45.7% 20.7% Don't know, 8.2% Won't vote, 16.4% Neither23.7% Hercón 1–15 May 2015 1200 28% 52% – 19.8% 11.2% Don't know, 14.2% Won't vote24% DatinCorp May 2015 1200 18% 48% 21% 14%30% Datanálisis 18–30 May 2015 1000 21.3% 40.1% 10.0% 28.6%18.8% Meganalisis 30 May 2015 –19.5% 17.6% – 28.7% 1.9% IVAD 28 May – 11 June 2015 1200 20.8% 32.6% 27.6 19% "The rest declares themselves undecided."11.8% Datanálisis June 2015 ? 27% 61% 12% –34% Hercón 20–27 June 2015 2000 28.1% 61.1% – 10.5%33% ICS 6–27 July 2015 800045.3% 37.6% – 17.1% 7.7% Datanálisis 10–23 July 2015 999 19.2% 42.2% 11.8% 17.5%23% DatinCorp July 2015 1197 20% 42% 14% 23% 13% "Wouldn't Vote, 10% "Undecided"22% Meganalisis August 2015 – 16.3% 42.4% – 13.0%26.1% IVAD 8–16 August 2015 1200 19.3% 57.9% – 22.8%38.6% Keller y Asociados 19 August – 5 September 2015 1200 27% 53% 11% 9%26% Datanálisis September 2015 – 21% 44% 35% –23% DatinCorp September 2015 – 20% 53% –33% Delphos September 2015 – 20% 50% 20% 10%30% Meganalisis September 2015 – 26.7% 37.6% – 35.7%10.9% Venebarómetro/IVAD 5–15 September 2015 1200 17.1% 38.3% 28.0% 16.7%21.2% Hercon 13–16 September 2015 1000 22.3% 60.1% 13.0% 4.6%37.8% Consultores 21 4–20 September 2015 – 35.8% 57.8% 3.7% –22% Hercon 5–20 September 2015 1200 30.3% 62.3% – 7.3%32% Consultores 21 October 2015 – 34% 55% –21% Datanálisis October 2015 – 28.2% 63.2% –35% DatinCorp October 2015 – 20% 47% –27% DatinCorp October 2015 – 39% 56% –17% IVAD October 2015 – 22.1% 41.8% 19.7% Venebarómetro 11 October 2015 – 19.9% 43.7% – 26.5%23.8% Keller y Asociados 5–15 November 2015 1200 25% 59% 11% 6%34% IVAD 10–20 November 2015 1200 27.8% 43.0% 11.3% 17.8%15.2% Venebarómetro 8–22 November 2015 1200 27.6% 42.7% 11.1% 18.7%15.1% Hercón 10–25 November 2015 1200 31.6% 60.1% – 8.2%28.5% Meganalisis 18–26 November 2015 1200 28% 63% 6% 3%35%

Conduct

Leading up to the elections, serious issues have been raised about its fairness and credibility. On 10 October 2015, Brazil pulled out of a UNASUR electoral mission to observe the Venezuelan election over what it said a lack of guarantees by the socialist government and its veto of the choice to head the delegation. In a statement on 10 November 2015, Secretary General of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro condemned Venezuela's electoral process, explaining that the ruling party, PSUV, has an unfair advantage with its ability to use public assets, media access, creating dubious voting sheets and by disqualifying opposition politicians, stating that "It's worrying that ... the difficulties only impact the opposition parties".

After the election, the opposition MUD coalition was accused of vote-buying in the state of Amazonas. The Supreme Court suspended all four Amazonas delegates (one socialist and three opposition). As of May 2018, these claims have not been proven.

United States involvement The United States has sought to influence Venezuelan political direction since the 1950s. For the 2015 elections this included mobilising through digital means. Prior to the elections, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) provided a grant to National Democratic Institute (NDI) for a project called "Venezuela: Improved Training and Communications Skills for Political Activists". After a Freedom of Information Act request from Jacobin, NED provided documents detailing that about $300,000 were granted to the NDI to assist the Venezuelan opposition with workshops to coach politicians and activists on political messaging, especially on social media. The program focused on using Facebook as a means of building support for the opposition; a database of voters was collected and targeted advertising on social media was utilized to swing government supporters vote for the opposition. The NED said that the program was necessary to combat the Venezuelan government's control of the media in Venezuela and that social media was less susceptible to censorship.

The project was first implemented in the 2013 Venezuelan municipal elections and determined to successfully interact with more voters, with the program subsequently being used for the 2015 parliamentary elections. The NDI claimed credit for the opposition's victory in the elections.

Results The MUD won 109 of the 164 general seats and all three indigenous seats, which gave them a supermajority in the National Assembly, while the GPP won the remaining 55 seats. Voter turnout was just over 74 percent.

The Great Patriotic Pole coalition led by the PSUV received 5,625,248 votes (40.92%) in the party-list vote. A total of 29 parties were members of the coalition, although six of them ran separately in some states.

List vote by state States/districts won by the MUDStates/districts won by the GPP