Voting is currently underway in Venezuela’s presidential election.
Polls close at 6 pm local time (22:00 GMT) and results could be published late on Sunday night or in the following days.
Authorities set the 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.
Nearly 21 million people are registered to vote, with 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 seven million people to emigrate.
Incumbent President, Nicolas Maduro faces his toughest electoral battle since he came to power 11 years ago amid an ongoing economic crisis.
Maduro has been in power since the death of his mentor, Chavez. He was narrowly elected that year, and his re-election in 2018 was widely dismissed as a sham.
Maduro, 61, is facing off 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.
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.
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, European Union and others have crippled an already struggling oil industry.
Maduro has said he will guarantee peace and economic growth, making Venezuela less dependent on oil income.
After voting on Sunday, Maduro said “no one is going to create chaos in Venezuela”.
“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.
Latin American leaders, including Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have called on Maduro to commit to stepping down if he loses.
Venezuelan opposition figures have also appealed to the country’s military, that has long supported Maduro and his predecessor, to respect the results.
Election Tagged Most Arbitrary In Recent Years
However, independent observers describe this election as the most arbitrary in recent years, even by the standards of an authoritarian regime that started with Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez.
The opposition and observers have questioned whether the vote will be fair, saying decisions by electoral authorities and the arrests of opposition staff are meant to create obstacles.
Opinion polls suggest that the president Nicolás Maduro, 61, who is seeking his third term, could be defeated by the opposition coalition candidate, retired diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, 74.
But experts warn that it is one thing for González to gain more votes, and another is for him to be announced as winner by the National Electoral Council, which is aligned with Maduro’s government.
Irregularities in the current election range from barring candidacies and detaining opposition members to changing polling locations and preventing voters at home and abroad from registering.
There will be virtually no international monitoring. UN and Carter Center observers have been allowed, but their roles will be limited.
“Establishing fair and free elections within an authoritarian regime is impossible,” said Jesús Castellanos, a consultant at Electoral Transparency, an NGO.
“To start with: fair elections assume that all parties have the opportunity to register their candidates,” he said.
“Since the campaign began, we’ve seen a significant number of arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, persecution of media and journalists,” Castellanos stressed, adding that such threats are themselves a form of electoral violence.
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