[ad_1]
Sunday’s election will be the first in nearly four years for the opposition to be overseen by observers
The Venezuelan opposition will run in the regional elections on Sunday for the first time in almost four years, but without disapproval and persuasion, President Nicolas Maduro will allow a free vote.
The main opposition he boycotted the last legislative and presidential elections were lacking in free, fair and transparent elections, but they agreed to take part in Sunday’s mayoral and governorship vote after receiving some government assurances.
Sunday’s vote will be overseen by European Union monitors in about 1,000 of the 14,400 polling stations, the first such mission since 2006. A powerful 100 teams spread across Venezuela on Thursday.
The opposition won four of the 23 state governors when it last ran in the 2017 elections.
Turnout among the country’s 21 million voters is expected to be low.
Opposition leaders have tried to sway the elected, campaigning high levels of poverty and the collapse of public services, especially outside the capital Caracas. However, they face an uphill battle to compete against the well-funded electoral machine that is Maduro’s socialist party.
“There is no water here. There is no electricity. There is no food. We just have hope, ”52-year-old lawyer and opposition leader Eva Prieto told Reuters news agency Manuel Rosales at a closing ceremony of Zulia’s western government candidate campaign.
Rosales, a 68-year-old lawyer who was governor of Zulia from 2000 to 2008, is believed to be one of the opposition candidates. According to opinion polls, the opposition could win in the southern border state of Tachira.
Zulia, the center of Venezuela’s oil industry, has experienced blackouts and a shortage of drinking water and gas as a result of years of poor infrastructure investment.
“We will stop the destruction and Zulia will enter another stage in its history,” Rosales told Reuters in the state capital Maracaibo.
The opposition show could also be hurt by doubts about the independence of some opposition candidates from the Maduro government.
Critics accuse some candidates of deliberately running against the Socialist Party to split the opposition vote.
Others have questioned whether a set of concessions by the Maduro government – an apparent attempt to achieve some speed in punishing international sanctions – will be fair.
Despite agreeing to the submission, the opposition General Assembly of the Democratic Union still stressed that the elections “will not be fair or conventional” because of the “serious obstacles” imposed by the government.
Opposition leader Juan Guaido, meanwhile, has spoken out against or against voting. Guaido was recognized as president by the US and its allies in 2019, but his support base has shrunk as the country’s economic crisis deepens.
Maduro resigned in October lectures with members of the opposition, Norway’s mediation in Mexico City, aimed to end the blockade on how the federal government should respond to the economic and social crisis the country is facing.
[ad_2]
Source link
