General elections were held in Venezuela on 30 July 2000, the first under the country's newly adopted 1999 constitution. Incumbent President Hugo Chávez ran for election for a full six-year term under the new constitution. He was challenged by another leftist and former ally, Zulia Governor Francisco Arias Cárdenas. Chávez won the election with almost 60% of the popular vote, increasing his vote share over the previous elections and managing to carry a larger number of states. Arias Cárdenas only managed to narrowly carry his home state of Zulia.
Background
The elections were for all popularly elected positions at different levels of government, which numbered more than six thousand. Venezuela was going through economic problems: although the price of oil had tripled since Chávez had become president, the economy had shrunk by 7%, unemployment had increased and foreign investors had moved away from the country. However, in spite of these problems and with the traditional political parties weakened, Chavez's reelection was imminent.
The elections were originally scheduled for 28 May, but the directors of the National Electoral Council (CNE), appointed by the Chavista majority in the Constituent Assembly, proved to be inefficient and only two days before the elections were to be held, the Supreme Court of Justice suspended the vote as the Electoral Council was not ready yet. Arias Cárdenas called his supporters to gather in front of the CNE to protest, but they were repelled by a group of Chavistas.
Presidential candidates
Only two politicians, Antonio Ledezma and Claudio Fermín, both former members of Democratic Action and former mayors of the Libertador Municipality of Caracas, made public their intentions to run against Chávez, both independently. Unexpectedly, in mid-February 2000, Chávez allies Francisco Arias Cárdenas, Jesús Urdaneta and Joel Acosta Chirinos; made a public statement giving Chávez an ultimatum to imprison some members of his government, claiming they had irrefutable evidence proving their corruption, including the president of the legislative power, Luis Miquilena, and foreign affairs minister José Vicente Rangel. Chávez responded by criticizing his former colleagues, whom he reproached for "not having washed the rags at home".
On 15 March Arias Cárdenas, supported by Urdaneta and Acosta Chirinos, registered his candidacy for the presidential election. Upon learning of this, Ledezma withdrew his but Fermin did not. Miquilena's response was to qualify as "trash" those who abandoned Chávez to support Arias Cárdenas. The new opposition leader received support from La Causa R and a handful of small leftist parties, although not from Democratic Action and Copei. Even though some analysts considered Arias Cardenas more pragmatic than Chávez, others such as Eleazar Díaz Rangel declared that they were basically the same.
Electoral system
Representatives in the National Assembly were elected under a mixed member proportional representation, with 60% elected from single seat districts and the remainder by closed party lists.