The latest: Venezuela chooses between another presidential term for Maduro or a big change

Venezuelans are deciding whether to give President Nicolás Maduro another six years and prolong the policies that caused the world’s worst peacetime economic collapse, or whether to support his last-minute opponent, retired diplomat Edmundo González.

Around 17 million people can vote.

González represents a coalition of opposition parties after being chosen in April as a replacement for the opposition powerhouse Maria Corina Machado, which was blocked by the Supreme Court of Justice controlled by Maduro. For the first time, opposition factions managed to unite behind a single candidate.

Here are the latest:

CARACAS, Venezuela – The polls have opened in Venezuela, where 17 million voters must choose between giving the increasingly authoritarian Nicolás Maduro a third presidential term or supporting an unknown newcomer who promises to end 25 years of single-party rule .

Retired diplomat Edmundo González is the only opponent at the polls who represents a real threat to Maduro’s stay in power.

The opposition boycotted the 2018 presidential elections, allowing Maduro to win at a time of hyperinflation and widespread shortages.

Although electoral conditions have improved little, this time he is competing because he believes that widespread outrage over Maduro’s mismanagement of the economy will guarantee his defeat. The last time it went to the polls as a unified front, in the 2015 parliamentary elections, it defeated the ruling socialist party.

CARACAS, Venezuela —Judy Oropeza says that when her sister died in 2019, she vowed never again to vote for the government that long employed her as a teacher.

It was the lowest point in Venezuela’s economic crisis and due to widespread shortages, Oropeza’s sister was unable to find the medicine she needed to treat her hypertension.

Oropeza was in Colombia trying to find work because her meager salary was not enough to feed her and her son. “I came home to practically bury her,” she said, holding back tears.

Today, sitting calmly on a bench in the iconic Plaza Bolívar, in Caracas, she recognizes that things have improved.

But she abandoned the profession she loved to escape hunger and still has to make ends meet for every penny of her $160 monthly salary in the private sector. “Now there is peace,” she says as a street sweeper collects fallen leaves from the marble floor. “But there are wounds that never heal. That’s why I’m voting for change.”

–Joshua Goodman

CARACAS, Venezuela — The key to Maduro’s chances on Sunday is the strength of the ruling party’s ability to mobilize its base.

One strategy, known as 1 x 10, asks each Maduro supporter to recruit 10 of their friends and family.

Asked on Sunday about these efforts to increase turnout, Maduro campaign chief Jorge Rodríguez said “our machine is well oiled.”

–Joshua Goodman

CARACAS, Venezuela —Authorities set Sunday’s election to coincide with what would have been the former president’s 70th birthday — a last-ditch effort by the ruling socialist party to gain the upper hand in the hard-fought electoral battle.

The former president and revered leftist firebrand died of cancer in 2013, leaving Maduro as his political heir.

In the poor neighborhood of Jan. 23, where a mausoleum holds Chávez’s remains, supporters shared a cake celebrating the birthday.

–Joshua Goodman

The president of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, Elvis Amoroso, says that 95% of voting centers across the country are open.

The council set up 30,026 electronic voting machines for the election.

Amoroso said Sunday that he and other election officials had a “clear conscience” about the work they were doing.

He said 100% of polling place workers were present at the voting centers from the moment they opened at 6am.

–Jorge Rueda

CARACAS, Venezuela – In the working-class neighborhood of Petare, in the east of Caracas, people lined up to vote hours before the polls opened.

Judith Cantilla, a 52-year-old domestic worker, said: “In God’s name, everything will be fine. Each person will take their position and well, (it’s time to) move to Venezuela.”

She said that people are tired and that the move to Venezuela is for more jobs, security, medicine in hospitals and better salaries for teachers and doctors.

Elsewhere, Liana Ibarra, a manicurist in greater Caracas, got in line at 3am on Sunday to find at least 150 people ahead of her.

Ibarra, 35, said her aunt wrote to her from the US at 2am to see if she was already in line.

With a backpack at his side loaded with water, coffee and cassava snacks, Ibarra said that there used to be a lot of indifference towards the elections, “but not anymore”.

All 11 of his mother’s siblings migrated. She didn’t follow them, she said, because her 5-year-old son has special needs. But if González doesn’t win, she will ask her relatives to sponsor her and her son’s application to legally migrate to the US.

“We can’t take it anymore,” she said.

–Fabiola Sánchez and Regina García Cano

CARACAS, Venezuela – At least eight representatives of parties authorized by the National Electoral Council to oversee the country’s largest voting center, in the capital Caracas, were denied access more than an hour after the polls were scheduled to open.

The officers linked their arms around the door as the representatives showed their printed certificates that were supposed to give them access.

Marisol Contreras, 58, the party’s top representative on the Unitary Platform, said she arrived at 4 a.m. and was told she couldn’t go to elementary school.

People connected to the government stood at the door and indicated that all the necessary personnel were already inside.

Marlyn Hernandez, voting center coordinator, said she doesn’t know why authorized representatives weren’t allowed into the school where more than 11,000 people are registered to vote. The center opened 90 minutes late.

CARACAS, Venezuela – Incumbent President Nicolás Maduro says he will recognize the result of the presidential election and has urged other candidates to publicly declare the same.

Maduro said after the vote on Sunday that “no one will create chaos in Venezuela.” He said “I recognize and will recognize the electoral referee, the official announcements” and that he would ensure that the result was recognized.

He called on the other nine candidates “to respect, ensure respect and publicly declare that they will respect the official announcement” of the winner.

TOKYO, Japan – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Venezuelans deserve an election “that genuinely reflects their will, free from manipulation.”

Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo on Sunday, Blinken said the US will not prejudge the outcome of the election and that the international community will be “watching closely” as he urges all parties to “honor their commitments and respect the democratic process.”

Blinken said that despite facing severe repression, Venezuelans are showing “enormous enthusiasm” for the elections.

He said the U.S. and the international community defended the agreement on Barbados’ electoral roadmap to restore political freedoms in Venezuela,” although Maduro and his representatives fell short of many of those commitments.

CARACAS, Venezuela – Opposition supporters greeted presidential candidate Daniel Ceballos with chants of “Get out! To go out! To go out! Traitor! “When he arrived to vote at a school in the center of Caracas.

Ceballos was a leader of anti-Maduro protests in 2014, calling for the president’s resignation less than a year after his election. He was arrested for his actions.

Ceballos lost some of his edge after he got out of prison years later. More recently, he surprised friends and enemies by registering to run against Maduro with rhetoric critical of the main opposition coalition, which considers him a traitor and a scapegoat for Maduro’s efforts to stay in power.

–Joshua Goodman

Clarisa Machado voted for Maduro in the working-class neighborhood of Petare, in Caracas.

The 74-year-old sociologist was confident that the experience the government had gained over years of crisis would make it better able to deal with difficult situations yet to come, as well as improve Venezuelans’ standard of living.

“We, Venezuelans, when they knock us down, we get up and this serves as an experience to not fall again,” she said.

–Jorge Rueda