Venezuelan election could lead to seismic shift in politics or give President Maduro six more years

Caracas Venezuela — The people of Venezuela will vote on Sunday in a presidential election the outcome of which will either lead to a seismic shift in policy or extend for six more years the policies that caused the world’s worst peacetime economic collapse.

Whether President Nicolás Maduro or his main opponent, retired diplomat Edmundo González, is elected, the election will have ripple effects throughout the American continent. Both opponents and supporters of the government have expressed interest in joining the exodus of 7.7 million Venezuelans who have already left their homes in search of opportunities abroad should Maduro win another term.

Polls open at 6 am local time. The number of eligible voters is estimated to be around 17 million.

Authorities timed Sunday’s elections to coincide with what would have been the 70th birthday of former President Hugo Chávez, the revered leftist firebrand who died of cancer in 2013, leaving his Bolivarian revolution in the hands of Maduro. But Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela are more unpopular than ever among many voters who blame his policies for crushing wages, fueling hunger, crippling the oil industry and separating families due to migration.

Maduro, 61, faces an opposition that has managed to align behind a single candidate after years of intra-party divisions and electoral boycotts that torpedoed his ambitions to topple the ruling party.

González represents a coalition of opposition parties after being selected in April as a last-minute replacement for the opposition powerhouse. Maria Corina Machadowho was prevented by the Supreme Court of Justice controlled by Maduro from running for any office for 15 years.

Machado, a former legislator, swept the October opposition primaries with more than 90% of the vote. After being prevented from joining the presidential race, he chose a university professor as his replacement on the ballot, but the National Electoral Council also prohibited him from registering. It was then that González, a newcomer to politics, was elected.

Eight other candidates challenging Maduro also appear in Sunday’s vote, but only González threatens Maduro’s government.

Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves and once boasted the most advanced economy in Latin America. But it went into free fall after Maduro took command. The fall in oil prices, widespread shortages and hyperinflation that exceeded 130,000% caused first social unrest and then mass emigration.

Sanctions The attempt by US President Donald Trump’s administration to oust Maduro from power after his 2018 reelection, which the United States and dozens of other countries condemned as illegitimate, only deepened the crisis.

In recent days, Maduro has toured Venezuela, inaugurating hospitals and roads and visiting rural areas where he had not set foot in years. His pitch to voters is one of economic security, which he underlines with stories of entrepreneurship and references to a stable exchange rate and lower inflation rates.

The capital, Caracas, saw a surge in business activity after the pandemic, boosting an economy that the International Monetary Fund forecasts will grow 4% this year, one of the fastest in Latin America, after having contracted 71% between 2012 and 2020.

“They tried to subjugate our people,” Maduro said about the United States during its closing ceremony on Thursday in Caracas, “but today we are upright and ready for victory on July 28.”

But most Venezuelans have not seen any improvement in their quality of life. Many earn less than $200 a month, meaning families struggle to afford essential items. Some work second and third job. A basket of basic products, enough to feed a family of four for a month, costs approximately $385.

The opposition has tried to take advantage of the huge inequalities that emerged from the crisis, during which Venezuelans abandoned their country’s currency, the bolivar, for the US dollar.

González and Machado focused much of their campaign on Venezuela’s vast interior, where the economic activity seen in Caracas in recent years failed to materialize. They promised a government that would create enough jobs to attract Venezuelans living abroad back home and reunite with their families.

An April survey by Caracas-based Delphos said about a quarter of Venezuelans were thinking about emigrating if Maduro wins on Sunday. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The majority of Venezuelans who migrated in the last 11 years settled in Latin America and the Caribbean. In recent years, many have begun to set their sights on the United States.

Both campaigns have distinguished themselves not only by the political movements they represent but also by the way they addressed voters’ hopes and fears.

Maduro’s campaign rallies included lively electronic merengue dances and speeches attacking his opponents. But after he got hot from leftist allies such as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for a comment about a “bloodbath” if he lost, Maduro backed down. His son told the Spanish newspaper El País that the ruling party peacefully hand over the presidency if he loses, a rare admission of vulnerability that is out of step with the triumphalist tone of Maduro’s campaign.

Instead, the González and Machado rallies caused people to cry and chant “ Freedom! Freedom! ”As the duo passed by. The people gave the devout Catholics rosaries, walked along roads and passed through military checkpoints to get to their events. Others made video calls to their relatives who had emigrated to allow them to see the candidates.

During a rally in mid-May, González, 74, asked his followers to imagine “a country in which our airports and borders would be full of our children returning home.”

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Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman contributed to this report.