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Some 20 million Venezuelans can participate this Sunday in the elections for the National Assembly, held amid international questioning and without the participation of the main opposition forces. The opposition called for a boycott on the grounds of “fraud” and left the way for the president’s candidates, Nicolás Maduro, to prevail without difficulties.
With small lines of voters, all protected with masks and formed in an orderly manner at the gates of the voting centers, the legislative elections began in the capital after 6 in the morning.
Among the people waiting in line at a school in the north of the capital was Exida Morales, a humble 60-year-old street vendor, who said that she decided to vote to have “every right to make a claim” and “see if the economy it improves because the meals are very expensive ”.
When asked about the boycott called by the opposition, Morales said that “so many things have happened that one no longer believes in one or the other.”
Between fireworks and the incessant sound of a target coming from large horns installed in the back of a white truck, a handful of government supporters, some of them dressed in red T-shirts and caps, concentrated in a western plaza from the capital to call voters to go out and vote. Similar events were repeated in other parts of the city.
Some 30,000 voting tables spread throughout the country would operate for twelve hours. The first scrutinies were expected by the end of the day.
Process normally
After voting in a center in the west of the city, the vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, told the press that “practically all the voting centers are open and ready” and that according to reports from the security forces, the process was underway. developing with “absolute normality”.
With the victory of the official candidates, Maduro ensures control of all public powers. By losing Congress, the opposition will be left without any institutional floor and very limited to exert any pressure against the government, which according to some analysts will hasten the end of the last vestiges of Venezuelan democracy.
An opposition coalition achieved a overwhelming majority in the 2015 elections and took control of the National Assembly, which they had run for sixteen years, from the ruling party. During the five years in office, the opposition had to deal with the legal siege of the Supreme Court of Justice, controlled by the government, which annulled all laws and decisions of Congress.
The recovery of the Legislative by the ruling party will have a bitter taste for the leftist president, since it will take place in the midst of the rejection of the United States, the European Union and a good part of the countries of the region, which have questioned the elections, ensuring that no The conditions for a transparent and democratic electoral process are met.
The critical stance of the international community suggests that there will be no changes in the pressures and sanctions against the Maduro government, who will have to continue to overcome the complex crisis only with the support of Russia, China, Iran, Cuba and Turkey, which in the last years they have become his staunch allies.
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