A Venezuelan living in Brasilia, Brazil, paints his face in the colors of his country’s flag as he gathers with fellow Venezuelans on Sunday, July 28, 2024, the day of the country’s presidential election.
Heraldo Perez/AP
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Heraldo Perez/AP
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans are anxiously awaiting the results of Sunday’s presidential election that could pave the way for an end to 25 years of one-party rule, although some polls are running more than three hours after the deadline Still open.
As President Nicolas Maduro seeks a third term, he faces his toughest challenge from the unlikeliest of opponents: Edmundo Gonzalez, a retired diplomat who was elected in April. Voters knew nothing about him until opposition giant Maria Collina’s last-minute stand-in.
Opposition leaders have celebrated online and outside several voting centers, convinced Gonzalez will win a landslide victory. Their hopes were bolstered by reports that exit polls showed Gonzalez narrowly winning. Exit polls are not allowed under Venezuelan law.
“I’m happy,” said Merling Fernández, a 31-year-old bank employee, as an opposition campaign representative walked out of a voting center in a working-class neighborhood of Caracas to announce results that showed González ahead of the Malays. Duro’s vote count was more than double. Dozens of people standing nearby suddenly broke into an impromptu rendition of the national anthem.
“This is the road to a new Venezuela,” Fernandez added, fighting back tears. “We are all tired of this shackles.”
Maduro’s supporters, however, show no sign of throwing in the towel.
“We can’t give results, but we can show face,” Maduro campaign chief Jorge Rodriguez said with a smile at a news conference.
Voting was scheduled to close at 6 p.m., but more than three hours after the deadline, some voting centers in Caracas remained open and authorities remained silent. The opposition called on the National Electoral Commission to start counting votes.
“This is a decisive moment,” Machado told reporters at campaign headquarters, accompanied by Gonzalez.
Opposition leader María Collina Machado hugs supporters after voting in the presidential election, Sunday, July 28, 2024, in Caracas, Venezuela.
Matthias Delacroix/AP
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Matthias Delacroix/AP
Machado was careful not to declare victory until authorities announced the results, but she said she had received copies of some official vote tallies showing record turnout – the exact scenario the opposition’s victory over Maduro was running on. required for a good electoral machine.
González was equally enthusiastic, congratulating the Venezuelan people on this “historic” day and urging supporters to “celebrate peacefully”.
Previously, US Vice President Kamala Harris expressed support. “The United States stands with the Venezuelan people as they make their voices heard in today’s historic presidential election. The will of the Venezuelan people must be respected,” Harris wrote on X.
Some of Maduro’s allies also expressed confidence.
“The ballot box expressed what was said on the streets during the last few months of the campaign,” Maduro’s son, lawmaker Nicolas Maduro Guerra, said as darkness fell in the capital. “A victory for the Venezuelan people.”
But without any order to close voting, their optimism rang hollow.
Voters began lining up at some voting centers across the country before dawn on Sunday, sharing water, coffee and snacks for hours.
The election will have ripple effects across the Americas, with opponents and supporters of the government saying they are interested in joining the exodus of 7.7 million Venezuelans who have left their homeland abroad if Maduro wins another six-year term. Look for opportunities.
Authorities have timed Sunday’s election to coincide with what would have been former President Hugo Chávez’s 70th birthday. The Var revolution is handed over to Maduro. But Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela are more unpopular than ever among many voters, who blame his policies for driving down wages, fueling hunger, crippling the oil industry and separating families through immigration.
Maduro, 61, faces an opposition that finally managed to back a candidate after years of intra-party divisions and electoral boycotts, thwarting its ambitions to oust the ruling party.
The Maduro-controlled Supreme Court banned Machado from running for any public office for 15 years. A former lawmaker, she swept the opposition’s October primary with more than 90 percent of the vote. After she was barred from running for president, she chose a university professor as her replacement, but the National Electoral Commission also banned her from registering. That’s when political newcomer Gonzalez was drafted.
Sunday’s vote featured eight other candidates challenging Maduro, but only Gonzalez threatens Maduro’s rule.
After the vote, Maduro said he would recognize the results and urged all other candidates to publicly announce they would do the same.
“No one is going to create chaos in Venezuela,” Maduro said. “I recognize and will recognize the electoral referees, the official proclamations, and I will make sure they are recognized.”
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and was once known as Latin America’s most developed economy. But with Maduro at the helm, it began a free fall. Plunging oil prices, widespread shortages and hyperinflation that soared more than 130,000% led first to social unrest and then to mass migration.
The U.S. has tried to force Maduro from power after he was re-elected in 2018, while the U.S. and dozens of other countries have denounced such economic sanctions as illegal, which only deepened the crisis.
Maduro is selling economic security to voters in this election, trying to sell it through entrepreneurial stories as well as stable currency exchange rates and low inflation. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the economy will grow by 4% this year, one of the fastest growing countries in Latin America, after shrinking by 71% from 2012 to 2020.
But the quality of life for most Venezuelans has not improved in any way. Many people earn less than $200 a month, meaning families struggle to afford necessities. Some people work second and third jobs. A basket of basic staples (enough to feed a family of four for a month) is estimated to cost $385.
Judith Cantilla, 52, voted to change those conditions.
“For me, the change in Venezuela is that there are jobs, there is security, hospitals have medicines, teachers and doctors are well paid,” she said as she cast her vote in Venezuela’s working-class Petare neighborhood.
Elsewhere, Liana Ibarra, a manicurist in the greater Caracas area, stood in line at 3 a.m. Sunday with water, coffee and a backpack full of cassava snacks, only to find at least 150 people ahead of her. .
“People used to be apathetic about elections, but not anymore,” Ibarra said.
She said that if Gonzalez loses the case, she will ask relatives living in the United States to sponsor her and her son’s application to legally immigrate to the United States. “We can’t take it anymore,” she said.
The opposition has sought to exploit the vast inequalities caused by the crisis, during which Venezuelans abandoned their national currency, the bolivar, in favor of the U.S. dollar.
Gonzalez and Machado have focused their campaigns on Venezuela’s vast hinterland, where Caracas’s economic activity has not materialized in recent years. They promised that the government would create enough jobs to attract Venezuelans living abroad to return home to reunite with their families.
After casting his vote at a polling station near a church in an upper-class Caracas neighborhood, González called on the country’s armed forces to respect “the decision of our people.”
“What we saw today were lines of joy and hope,” Gonzalez, 74, told reporters. “We will turn hatred into love. We will turn poverty into progress. We will turn corruption into honesty. We will turn farewell into reunion.”
An April poll by Caracas-based Delphos showed that about a quarter of Venezuelans were considering emigrating if Maduro won on Sunday. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Most Venezuelans who immigrated in the past 11 years have settled in Latin America and the Caribbean. In recent years, many people have begun to turn their attention to the United States
What’s remarkable about both campaigns is not just the political movements they represent, but also how they address voters’ hopes and fears.
Maduro’s campaign rallies have featured boisterous electronic merengue dancing and speeches attacking his opponents. But Maduro backed down after comments from left-wing allies such as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva about a “massacre” if he lost. His son told Spanish newspaper El Pais they would peacefully hand over the presidency if the ruling party failed – a rare admission of vulnerability that was at odds with the victorious tone of Maduro’s campaign.
In contrast, rallies for Gonzalez and Machado prompted people to chant “Freedom! Freedom!” as the two men passed. People presented rosaries to devout Catholics, walked along highways and passed military checkpoints on their way to the event. Others make video calls to relatives who have moved abroad to let them see the candidates.
“We don’t want more Venezuelans to leave, and for those who leave, I say we will do everything possible to get them back here and we will welcome them with open arms,” Gonzalez said on Sunday.
Associated Press writer Fabiola Sanchez contributed to this report.
