Venezuela is a federal presidential republic governed by a constitution. There are five branches of government: Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Citizen, and Electoral.

The chief executive is President of Venezuela who is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the President. Legislative power is vested in the National Assembly.

There are currently two major blocs of political parties in Venezuela: the incumbent leftist bloc United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), its major allies Fatherland for All (PPT) and the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV); and the opposition bloc led by A New Era (UNT) together with its allied parties Project Venezuela, Justice First, Movement for Socialism (Venezuela) and others.

Following the fall of Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1958, Venezuelan politics was dominated by the third-way Christian democratic COPEI and the center-left social democratic Democratic Action (AD) parties; this two-party system was formalized by the puntofijismo arrangement. However, this system has been sidelined following the initial 1998 election of current president Hugo Chávez.

Chavez has also established alliances with several Latin American countries which have elected leftist governments, such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Paraguay — evident in the “Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas.”