United Socialist Party of Venezuela

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (, PSUV) is a left-wing to far-left socialist political party which has been the ruling party of Venezuela since 2010. It was formed from a merger of some of the political and social forces that support the Bolivarian Revolution led by President Hugo Chávez. At the 2015 parliamentary election, PSUV lost its majority in the National Assembly for the first time since the unicameral legislature's creation in 2000 against the Democratic Unity Roundtable, winning 55 out of the National Assembly's 167 seats. In the 2020 elections however, amid a widespread opposition boycott, they won back a supermajority of the chamber. History The process of merging most of the unidentified parties involved in the pro-Bolivarian Revolution coalition was initiated by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez after he won the Venezuelan presidential election of 2006. The process was led by Chávez' own party, the Fifth Republic Movement, and was supported by a range of smaller parties such as the People's Electoral Movement (MEP), Venezuelan Popular Unity (UPV), the Tupamaro Movement, the Socialist League and others which all together added up 45.99% of the votes received by Chávez during the 2006 election. Other pro-Bolivarian parties like the Communist Party of Venezuela (Partido Comunista de Venezuela, PCV), Fatherland for All (Patria Para Todos, PPT) and For Social Democracy (PODEMOS), that cast 14.60% of the votes from that election, declined to join the new party. On 7 March 2007, Chávez presented a phased plan for founding the new party until November 2007. PODEMOS, PPT and PCV initially stated they would wait until PSUV had been founded and decide their membership in the new party based on its program. On 18 March 2007, Chávez declared on his programme Aló Presidente that he had "opened the doors for the For Social Democracy, the Fatherland for All, and the Communist Party of Venezuela if they want to go away from Chávez´s alliance, they may do so and leave us in peace". In his opinion, those parties were near to be on the opposition and they should choose wisely, between going "in silence, hugging us or throwing stones". PPT, at its 2007 congress on 10 and 11 April, decided not to join but re-affirmed its support for Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution.