Other meanings of National Constituent Assembly
Venezuela · constitutional politics
The National Constituent Assembly (Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, ANC) was a body convened by President Nicolás Maduro in 2017 to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution. Its creation was contested because the government interpreted presidential constitutional powers as permitting the assembly to be called without a prior popular referendum, while opposition parties, the National Assembly, and international observers argued that the process bypassed constitutional and electoral safeguards.1 The ANC functioned alongside Venezuela’s elected legislature until it was dissolved in December 2020, but it did not produce a replacement constitution.
The ANC emerged from Venezuela’s escalating institutional crisis in 2017. President Nicolás Maduro announced the convocation on 1 May, invoking Articles 347–349 of the 1999 Constitution, which describe constituent power and the authority to initiate a national constituent process.2 The government presented the body as a route to peace, economic recovery, and a new political settlement after months of demonstrations and clashes.
The central legal dispute concerned who had to authorize the process. The Supreme Court’s constitutional chamber endorsed the presidential interpretation, but opposition lawmakers and constitutional scholars argued that Article 347 reserved constituent sovereignty for the people and that voters should first approve the convocation. The National Electoral Council organized the election under rules designed by the government, without participation from the main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable.1
The controversy made the ANC a question of constitutional authority as much as an electoral event. It also deepened the separation between state institutions controlled by Chavismo and the opposition-controlled National Assembly.
The 30 July 2017 election selected 545 delegates, with territorial and sectoral seats allocated through a system established by the National Electoral Council. Opposition parties boycotted the vote, arguing that the rules overrepresented pro-government constituencies and that competitive conditions did not exist. The government reported more than eight million votes, while the opposition and independent observers disputed both turnout and the credibility of the process; Smartmatic, the technology company that had supplied Venezuela’s voting system, publicly alleged that participation figures had been manipulated.3
The assembly was installed on 4 August 2017 in the Federal Legislative Palace, despite the continued operation of the elected National Assembly. It claimed constituent supremacy and exercised powers beyond drafting a constitution, including legislation, oversight, and the removal of the attorney general. In August it established a governing commission led by former foreign minister Delcy Rodríguez, and it created commissions dealing with constitutional, economic, and institutional matters.
These arrangements produced what international observers described as parallel institutions. The ANC’s authority was recognized by the executive and the Supreme Court but rejected by the opposition legislature and by several foreign governments.
The ANC helped the Maduro government consolidate control after the 2017 protests. In August 2017 it assumed powers that the opposition-controlled legislature regarded as its own, and it approved measures that expanded the government’s ability to prosecute political opponents. The assembly also removed Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz, who had broken with Maduro and challenged the legality of the convocation.
The United Nations documented excessive use of force, arbitrary detention, and other abuses during the 2017 unrest, while the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights described the constituent process as lacking democratic guarantees.4 Human-rights concerns therefore extended beyond the assembly’s legal status to the environment in which it operated. Critics argued that its constituent label gave exceptional powers to an institution elected without a genuinely competitive national contest.
The ANC also adopted the so-called Law against Hate in November 2017. The measure imposed criminal penalties for certain speech and broadcasting, and human-rights organizations warned that its broad language could be used to suppress dissent.5 Its political importance was consequently greater than its limited constitutional output.
The ANC never completed the constitutional replacement for which it had been convened. Its initial two-year mandate was extended in 2019, but the body continued primarily as a legislative and political instrument rather than a successful constituent convention. It dissolved on 18 December 2020 after the December legislative elections returned a new government-aligned National Assembly; the 1999 Constitution remained in force.
The assembly also had an unusual sectoral component. In addition to territorial delegates, seats were assigned to groups described as workers, peasants and fishers, students, retirees, people with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, entrepreneurs, and communes. Supporters presented this design as participatory representation, whereas opponents argued that the registration and allocation rules favored organized groups linked to the government.
International recognition was sharply divided. The governments of the United States, Canada, and many Latin American states rejected the ANC’s legitimacy, while Russia, China, Cuba, Bolivia, and other governments treated it as a Venezuelan sovereign decision. The episode became a prominent example of how constitutional mechanisms can be used amid democratic breakdown without producing a consensual constitutional order.
The assembly is also commonly abbreviated ANC, although the same abbreviation can refer to constituent bodies in other countries.
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