Opposition leader Guaido calls for Venezuela presidential elections

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido calls to set a date for the next presidential elections, scheduled for 2024. Guaido has not yet confirmed whether he will be a candidate as the opposition has been working for months on organising primaries to define who will be the candidate to face the president Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido called on authorities to schedule a date for the country's next presidential vote, after years of bitter clashes with President Nicolas Maduro during a deep economic and social crisis.

"We are demanding a date for a presidential election that means change for Venezuela," Guaido said. Maduro's government has to date committed to elections tentatively scheduled for late 2023 or 2024.

Diminished by internal divisions as well as the exile and imprisonment of some of its leaders, Venezuela's political opposition is considering holding primaries for a single candidate to oppose Maduro next June.

It would mark the first opposition participation in a presidential election since 2013, after it boycotted the 2018 vote saying the electoral system was biassed in favour of Maduro's ruling socialists, an assertion backed by most international observers at the time.

The afternoon march through a northwestern part of the capital follows months of relatively few street protests.

Washington has signalled it could ease sanctions on Venezuela if Maduro returns to talks with the opposition and takes steps toward holding free elections.