Venezuela elections 2024: Venezuelans vote, Maduro faces challenge from Gonzále

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Polls have opened in Venezuela, where people are casting their ballots Sunday in a presidential election the outcome of which will either lead to a seismic shift in policy or extend for another six years the policies that have caused the world’s worst peacetime economic collapse.

Whether President Nicolás Maduro or his main opponent, retired diplomat Edmundo González, wins, the election will have ripple effects across the Americas. Opponents and supporters of the government have signaled their interest in joining the exodus of 7.7 million Venezuelans who have already left their homes in search of opportunities abroad if Maduro wins another term.

Polls open at 6 a.m. local time. The number of eligible voters is estimated at around 17 million.

Officials timed Sunday’s election 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 Maduro’s hands. 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 managed to align behind a single candidate after years of internal 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 party Maria Corina Machadowho was barred by the Maduro-controlled Supreme Court from running for any office for 15 years.

Machado, a former lawmaker, won the opposition primary in October with more than 90 percent of the vote. After being barred from the presidential race, she chose a university professor as her replacement on the ballot, but the National Electoral Council also blocked her from registering. That’s when González, a political newcomer, was chosen.

Sunday’s vote also features eight other candidates challenging Maduro, but only González poses a threat to Maduro’s government.

Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves and once boasted Latin America’s most advanced economy. But it went into freefall after Maduro took over. Plunging oil prices, widespread shortages and hyperinflation that topped 130,000 percent led first to social unrest and then to mass emigration.

Sanctions The government of U.S. President Donald Trump, which is seeking to remove Maduro from power after his 2018 re-election — which the U.S. and dozens of other countries condemned as illegitimate — has only deepened the crisis.

In recent days, Maduro has crisscrossed Venezuela, opening hospital wards and highways and visiting rural areas he has not been to in years. His pitch to voters is one of economic security, which he underscores with stories of entrepreneurship and references to a stable exchange rate and lower inflation rates.

The capital, Caracas, has seen 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 shrinking 71% from 2012 to 2020.

“They tried to subjugate our people,” Maduro said of the United States during his closing rally on Thursday in Caracas, “but today we are firm and ready for victory on July 28th.”

But most Venezuelans have seen no improvement in their quality of life. Many earn less than $200 a month, meaning families struggle to afford essential items. Some working second and third jobs. A basket of basic food items — enough to feed a family of four for a month — costs about $385.

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

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

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

Most Venezuelans who have migrated in the past 11 years have settled in Latin America and the Caribbean. In recent years, many have begun to target the U.S.

Both campaigns stood out not only for the political movements they represented, but also for the way they addressed voters’ hopes and fears.

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

In contrast, González and Machado’s rallies had people crying and shouting “ Freedom! Freedom! ” as the pair passed by. People handed over the devout catholics rosaries, walked along highways and passed through military checkpoints to get to their events. Others video-called relatives who had migrated to let them get a glimpse of the candidates.

During a rally in mid-May, González, 74, asked supporters to imagine “a country where our airports and borders are full of our children coming home.”

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Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman contributed to this report.