The Venezuelan election authority has set the South American country's parliamentary election for Dec. 6, El Nacional reported.

The move comes after opponents of embattled President Nicolás Maduro had demanded for months that the purportedly independent National Electoral Council (CNE) determine a date for the vote.

Tibisay Lucena, the agency's president, accused "small groups who would like to be politicians (and) impose their will at all costs" to have created a climate of doubt concerning the election, especially on social networks, the newspaper noted.

"At no time did the CNE give any signs that there would not be an electoral process this year," Lucena insisted. "Lies were spread over the date and procedure (of the vote), which led to tensions in the attempt to harm the reputation of the CNE," she added.

Nevertheless, the date chosen is closely linked to the movement of Maduro and his late predecessor and mentor, former President Hugo Chávez, Reuters noted; the charismatic former leader was first elected to Venezuela's presidency on Dec. 6, 1998.

"Now we have the date of the battle for a new people's victory," Maduro noted in a tweet.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, however, seemed to worry less about the specific date and instead expressed relief that this year's parliamentary election was set to take place in the end.

"Finally we have a date for the elections!" Capriles noted on Twitter. "Now more than ever: unity and change," he added.

Still, Jesús Torrealba, who leads the opposition coalition known as the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), complained about the months-long tug-of-war concerning the vote, the Miami Herald said.

"The best proof that we are not in a democracy is what just happened," Torrealba contended. "In a country like this, which is facing a totalitarian process, the people had to yank an election date out of the government through multiple acts of pressure."

Lucena, for her part, detailed that campaigning to fill the 167-seat National Assembly would begin Nov. 13 and promised that the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) would be asked to observe the election.