VENEZUELA – Millions of Venezuelans are expected to cast their ballots on Sunday, July 28, in what many see as the most consequential election in the country since strongman leader Nicolás Maduro came to power more than a decade ago.
The vote pits the authoritarian Maduro – who has overseen unprecedented levels of poverty and emigration from the country – against Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia – a quiet, bird-loving grandfather who has built a strong following despite being the opposition’s third choice after its two preferred candidates were barred from running.
But experts warn that the result of the vote may well be contested. Maduro has a habit for clinging to power, they point out: his government has long been accused of rigging votes and the 2018 election that returned Maduro to office was described as illegitimate by an alliance of 14 Latin American nations, Canada and the United States.
Maduro, who took the mantle of the populist Chavismo movement after his predecessor Hugo Chavez’s death in 2013, is seeking his third consecutive six-year term in office. His last race was largely boycotted by the opposition. The Organization of American States called that vote a “farce,” noting that it was “held with a generalized lack of public freedoms, with outlawed candidates and parties and with electoral authorities lacking any credibility, subject to the executive power.”
At campaign events this year – usually rollicking, dance-filled affairs – Maduro has framed his opponents as “fascist” and “manipulable,” claiming that they would privatize the country’s healthcare and oil industry and “give away our wealth.” Though under his watch, Venezuela has seen the rapid collapse of its democracy and nearly eight million of its people flee the country. Inflation has soared and food shortages spread as the country underwent “the single largest economic collapse for a non-conflict country in almost half a century,” as the International Monetary Fund put it. (CNN)…[+]