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, according to the media reports.
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.
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.
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