Polling for Venezuela’s presidential elections opened on Sunday, as incumbent Nicolas Maduro faces his toughest electoral battle after coming to power 11 years ago amid an ongoing economic crisis, Al Jazeera reported.
Queues of voters were seen outside polling stations in six different locations around the country on Sunday. Nearly 21 million people are registered to vote in the polls.
This comes as a reinvigorated opposition trying to end the 25-year rule by the United Socialist Party with the promise to end the decade-long economic crisis that forced 7 million people to migrate from the country.
Polls close at 6 pm (local time) and results could be published late on Sunday night or in the following days.
Authorities set Sunday’s election to coincide with what would have been the 70th birthday of former President Hugo Chavez, the revered leftist leader who died of cancer in 2013. Maduro, 61, who took over after Chavez’s death, is seeking a third term in office.
The two-time president is up against an opposition that has managed to line up behind a single candidate after years of intraparty divisions and election boycotts that torpedoed their ambitions to topple the governing party, as reported by Al Jazeera.
President Maduro’s main challenger is 74-year-old Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who was declared opposition bloc candidate after the main opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, was banned from holding public office.
However, the opposition and observers have raised concerns about whether the vote will be fair, saying decisions by electoral authorities and the arrests of opposition staff are meant to create obstacles, according to Al Jazeera.
Maduro’s government has presided over an economic collapse, the migration of about a third of the population, and a sharp deterioration in diplomatic relations. Sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and others have crippled an already struggling oil industry.
Maduro – whose 2018 re-election is considered ‘fraudulent’ by the US, among others – has said the country has the “world’s most transparent” electoral system and has warned of a “bloodbath” if he were to lose.
Maduro has said he will guarantee peace and economic growth, making Venezuela less dependent on oil income. He also said he would recognise the result of the presidential election and urged other candidates to publicly declare the same.
The incumbent president has claimed “no one is going to create chaos in Venezuela” after the voting on Sunday, as reported by Al Jazeera.
“I recognise and will recognise the electoral referee, the official announcements,” and that he would make sure the result is recognised.
He called on the other nine candidates “to respect, to make respected and to declare publicly that they will respect the official announcement” of the winner.