CARACAS – The campaign season in Venezuela officially started ahead of the July 28 presidential elections, according to the National Electoral Council.

The governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela and its allies, together known as the Great Patriotic Pole, are backing President Nicolas Maduro’s reelection bid with planned marches in 70 cities across the country.

“We are going to take 70 cities, for the 70 years of our Commander Hugo Chavez, with gigantic marches. We are going with our joy, our music and our tenderness,” Maduro’s campaign manager Jorge Rodriguez said in a post on social media.

“There will be hundreds of thousands of people who will show the strength in the unity we have!” Rodriguez added. Other candidates also took to social media to announce they would be hitting the campaign trail.

Luis Eduardo Martinez, the candidate for Democratic Action, a social democratic party, said he would again travel “my country’s roads inviting everyone to peacefully and electorally resolve the #Venezuela model.”

The standard bearer of the Venezuela First party, Jose Brito, said he was “committed to working on the transformation of Venezuela, with a focus on the well-being and prosperity of our people.”

Edmundo Gonzalez, the candidate for the Democratic Unity Roundtable, announced he would start his campaign with a mobilization in the capital Caracas, saying: “See you this Thursday, July 4.” More than 21 million Venezuelans are eligible to vote in the presidential elections. (Xinhua)

Photo: A man dressed as an independence fighter attends a political event with Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez in Caracas. (AP) …[+]