2022: The Socialist Party Candidate Lost the Governor’s Election in Barinas

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) is the dominant political party in Venezuela. Formed in late 2006 by President Hugo Chavez, PSUV candidates won the Presidency in 2012 (Chavez) and in 2013 and 2018 (Nicolas Maduro). In the Governors’ election of 2017 PSUV candidates won 18 of the 23 states.

The western state of Barinas has a special importance in Venezuela as the boyhood home of Hugo Chavez. Chavez’s father was Governor of Barinas from 1998 to 2008.He was followed by Hugo Chavez’s brother Adan and then by older brother Argenis who beat National Assembly member Freddy Superlano in 2017. However, there was considerable discontent with the Chavez-family governors for being autocratic, corrupt and inattentive to the peoples’ problems.

Venezuela held governor elections on November 21, 2021. The process was overseen by the National Electoral Council (CNE), two of whose five board members represented opposition parties.[1] The CNE announced that PSUV candidates won the vote in 19 states while in 3 states the opposition won. The Barinas election results were not finalized by the CNE on election day.

In Barinas, preliminary results put the opposition candidate Freddy Superlano ahead of PSUV governor Argenis Chavez by .4% of the vote. However, on November 30, the Supreme Court suspended the final tallying of Barinas votes and ordered that a new election be held after determining that Superlano had been barred in August 2020 from running for public office by the Comptroller General’s office due to accusations of corruption.[1] The Comptroller General never clarified why his office had failed to notify the CNE ahead of the election.[1] Some observers saw the Court’s decision to annul the election as an act of interference through which Maduro loyalists overturned what had been an embarrassing loss.[1] However, the repeat of the election was unexpected since the first option of the government was simply to declare Argenis Chavez as the winner. The holding of the special election in Barinas is attributed to a relatively independent CNE.[1]

The special election was held on January 9, 2022. Eleven opposition political parties supported the Democratic Action party candidate Sergio Garrido who had served as a councilman for the Barinas municipality. PSUV chose Jorge Arreaza, who had served as Venezuela’s vice president and foreign minister and had been Hugo Chavez’s son-in-law and father of his grandson. Maduro’s government delivered social housing and unveiled numerous public works projects during the campaign.[2] The CNE announced that Garrido won the election with 55% of the vote compared to 41% for Arreaza. Voter turnout was 51%.[3] Garrido’s win was attributed to the unity of the opposition behind a moderate local candidate.[4] Zulia state governor Manuel Rosales said that the victory proved that the “electoral route” works.[3] There were no complaints of vote fraud.

Postscript: In January 2025, Garrido met with the Dialogue Commission convened by the President of the National Assembly. Because of this, the leadership of the Democratic Action Party expelled him from the Party. Opposition leader Maria Machado called for a boycott of the May 2025 Governor elections. Garrido ran for re-election and lost (73% to 20%) to PSUV candidate Adan Chavez. In 2022, Garrido had received 174,430 votes while in 2025 he received only 29,724 votes due to abstention by opposition voters. (Voter turnout was 34%).   

1.Rodriguez, Francisco, How Clientelism Works: Evidence from the Barinas Special Election, World Development, August 2024.

2. VOA, Ruling Party Candidate Concedes Defeat in tense Venezuela Regional Vote, January 10, 2022.

3.Venenuelanalysis, PSUV Loses Barinas to Opposition in Election Re-Run, January 10, 2022.

4. Foreign Policy, Venezuela’s opposition Wins on Hugo Chavez’s Home Turf, January 14, 2022.

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