Venezuelan voters are voting in large numbers to decide whether authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro will win another six-year term in office or whether the country will abandon a quarter-century of revolutionary socialism and are awaiting official results.
Before the polls closed Sunday night, independent surveys had given the main opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, a lead of 20 to 30 percentage points. “It lived up to our expectations and we are very happy,” Gonzalez said after the polls closed. But many Venezuelans fear the government will not acknowledge the opposition’s victory.
Both sides are casting the election as a turning point for Venezuela, once a wealthy oil exporter whose economy has collapsed over the past decade due to government mismanagement and harsh U.S. sanctions, causing a quarter of the population to flee the country and sparking the largest migration crisis in the Americas.
The government and opposition parties praised the large number of voters who peacefully turned out in large numbers to cast their ballots using electronic voting machines at more than 15,000 polling stations, some of whom waited patiently for hours in heat.
Washington has suggested sanctions could be lifted if the elections are fair, but Maduro’s allies Russia, Iran and Cuba want the status quo to remain.
“The will of the Venezuelan people must be respected,” U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said at the X after the voting ended. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “The Venezuelan people deserve elections that are not subject to any manipulation and that truly reflect their will.”
Maduro has warned of “bloodshed” if the opposition wins. He has called opposition leader Maria Corina Machado a dangerous fascist and Gonzalez a “coward” and a “puppet of the far-right.”
Gonzalez, a 74-year-old former diplomat, is running to replace Machado, who won an opposition primary in October but was barred from running by the government-controlled Supreme Court in January.
“We have already defeated the regime morally, spiritually and in the streets,” Machado told the Financial Times from his office in eastern Caracas before the election.
The Maduro government has taken steps to cripple the opposition, arresting dozens of activists and aides, closing restaurants and hotels that cater to Machado and Gonzalez, and ordering broadcasters not to mention Machado’s name.
People queued overnight outside polling stations across the country waiting to vote on Sunday, and Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, cast their ballots in Caracas shortly after polls opened, wearing tracksuits emblazoned with the Venezuelan flag.
“That day has come, and it has come in peace,” Maduro told reporters. “I recognize and will recognize the electoral jury and the official announcements, and I will ensure that they are recognized.”
In Petare, a poor Caracas neighbourhood once considered a stronghold of former President Hugo Chavez, Marvin Velasco, 52, who works for a state-run news group, waited in the sun for four hours to vote.
Like many in line, Velasco had once supported Maduro’s populist predecessor, Chavez, but on Sunday voted for the opposition. “People cannot continue to live hungry and without water,” Velasco said, standing opposite a mural depicting Maduro, Chavez and independence hero Simon Bolivar. “We need change.”
On a busy thoroughfare, a street sweeper ripped down one of Maduro’s posters from the street, crumpled it up and stuffed it into a garbage bag.
At a nearby polling station overlooking the hillside slums, Berta Reyes said she used to support the ruling Socialist party but voted for Gonzalez. “This country needs change for it to prosper,” she said, as soldiers ushered voters to the polls. “That’s not going to happen with this government.”
Leiris Salazar, 36, is one of 7.7 million Venezuelans living abroad. She moved to Chile in 2016 because of a lack of work and worsening crime in her neighborhood. “I came back to vote for Edmundo,” Salazar said. “If he wins, I’ll come back here. If Maduro wins, my friends and family will move too.”
Of the roughly 30 people questioned in Petare, not one said they would vote for Maduro.
Machado has waged an insurrectionary campaign on social media, traveled the country by car and drawn huge crowds despite not appearing on national television or on billboards across the country.
Maduro’s 2018 re-election was viewed by many in the West as fraudulent, and Washington, Canada and the European Union imposed sanctions on him and his top aides.
Fearing that Maduro might manipulate the results or block access to polling stations, the opposition conducted a parallel vote count and registered some 100,000 observers to monitor the election. Few international observers have been present since the government in May rescinded an invitation for the European Union to monitor the election.
Worried that the government would cut off electricity and internet access on Sunday, Machado and Gonzalez planned to watch the results from a room at the opposition headquarters, powered by diesel generators and Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service, which uses satellites not controlled by the government.
