Nicolás Maduro has approved the holding of legislative elections this year in Venezuela

The President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, Saturday approved a proposal from the Constituent Assembly to advance the elections from 2020 to this year to renew the Parliament, with a majority of opposition and at the head of the self-proclaimed interim President, Juan Guaidó.

The constituency badesses the call "an advance on the parliamentary elections this year (…) I agree and I resign (I commit myself) with this decisionMaduro said on a platform at the end of a march of his supporters in Caracas.

Parliament is the only power that the opposition controls in the oil countryafter the overwhelming victory in the December 2015 elections, at the root of the current power struggle.

"Do you want early elections? We are going to elections!"Maduro harangued his supporters, baduring that these elections could be convened by consensus with the opposition. "in a dialogue".

Guaidó rejected any possibility to engage "a false dialogue" with the socialist governmentand warns that he will only agree to a "negotiation" to agree on the terms of a free transfer of power and "elections" for the election of candidates. a new president.

Despite Saturday's announcement, Maduro has ruled out the holding of presidential elections by ensuring that just finished in May 2018when he was re-elected in a process boycotted by the main opposition parties as fraudulent.

The conflict erupted when Guaidó is proclaimed acting president on January 23 – Recognized by the United States, several Latin American countries and, since Thursday, by the European Parliament – after the lawmaker declared Maduro "usurper" after the start of his second term on January 10.

Since the opposition won a majority in Parliament in early 2016, all decisions of the chamber are considered invalid by the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) -of the official line-, who declared it contempt.