CARACAS, Venezuela (AFP) — Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro — who is battling a crippling economic crisis in his oil-rich, cash-poor nation — will seek re-election next year, Vice President Tareck El Aissami said Wednesday.

In 2018, “we will have, God willing, people willing, the re-election of our brother Nicolas Maduro as president of the republic,” El Aissami told a meeting of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Next year’s presidential election in the South American country — a member of OPEC — is scheduled for December, but some experts believe it could be brought forward to March.

The prolonged crisis in Venezuela has resulted in crippling shortages of food, medicine and industrial inputs, fuelling inflation which at 1,000 per cent is the world’s highest.

Ratings agencies have found the country in partial default on massive international loans, estimated at US$150 billion.

Maduro is also under fire internationally for marginalizing the opposition, which controls the legislature, and stifling independent media.

Protests against his rule have mounted: violent demonstrations and a harsh crackdown left 43 people dead in 2014 and earlier this year.

His government is due to begin talks with the main opposition coalition next week in the Dominican Republic to try to put an end to the political crisis.

El Aissami’s announcement coincided with the release of a Human Rights Watch report that denounced “widespread vicious abuses,” including torture, against Maduro’s opponents.

The abuses include “egregious cases of torture, and the absolute impunity for the attackers,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director at the rights monitoring group.

The 62-page report, produced jointly with the Venezuelan rights group Penal Forum, is based on interviews with more than 120 people, including victims and their families.

“These are not isolated abuses or occasional excesses by rogue officers but rather a systematic practice by Venezuelan security forces,” Vivanco said, suggesting “government responsibility at the highest levels.”

The report documents 88 cases involving at least 314 people between April and September 2017. “Security force personnel beat detainees severely and tortured them with electric shocks, asphyxiation, sexual assault, and other brutal techniques,” the report said.

They also used “disproportionate force and carried out violent abuses” against people in the streets, as well as arbitrarily arresting and prosecuting government opponents, it added. Maduro’s re-election would be a response to the “coup” of the opposition and the “financial persecution and sanctions” of the United States, said El Aissami.

“We are ready to achieve a great revolutionary victory,” he said to applause.

The vice president pointed out that a second term for Maduro would round off a string of victories for the Socialist party.

In late July, a Constituent Assembly — comprised of Maduro supporters — was elected. It took the place of the opposition-dominated national assembly.

In regional elections in October, the ruling party won governorships in 18 of the country’s 23 states.

El Aissami predicted the ruling party would win “the vast majority” of open mayorships in upcoming municipal elections next month.

Maduro has been labeled a “dictator” by the United States, France and other powers over the creation of the all-powerful Constituent Assembly in what opponents denounced as a blatant attempt to bypass the opposition-majority parliament.