Venezuela, Caracas
CNN
—
Venezuelans headed to the polls on Sunday to vote in a highly consequential presidential election in which the country’s longtime strongman, Nicolas Maduro, will face one of his greatest political challenges yet, say analysts.
Long lines began to form outside polling centers in the capital, Caracas, before they were due to open at 6 a.m. ET. Opposition leaders later said there had been a high voter turnout of more than 9 million people as of Sunday afternoon.
Voters in Caracas appeared optimistic. “[After] 25 years, I see that there is a real chance to change. I see a lot of people getting together to vote,” voter Mariana Schemel said.
Others spoke about wanting to help their country, which has seen an exodus of Venezuelans fleeing economic collapse. “I’m doing this for my children and my grandchildren,” voter Amelia Perez told CNN. She has three sons, one of whom is living in Washington, D.C. “I want him to come back and I don’t want my children to leave. All the rest of my family already left.
Maduro, who took the mantle of the ruling Chavismo movement after his predecessor Hugo Chavez’s death in 2013, is seeking his third consecutive six-year term in office. Of the nine other candidates running for the presidency, his biggest challenger is a unified opposition movement that overcame their divisions to form a coalition known as the Democratic Unitary Platform.
The opposition movement has maintained its momentum despite sustained government repression, in which their first-choice candidate, María Corina Machado, was disqualified from running. Machado, an avowed capitalist who has promised privatization of several state industries, has since rallied for her replacement, the soft-spoken former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia.
The vote has come at a crucial moment for Venezuela, which has experienced violent repression under Maduro’s watch and the worst economic collapse of a peacetime country in recent history. The oil-rich nation, once the fifth-largest economy in Latin America, has seen its economy shrink in the last decade to the equivalent of a medium-sized city, according to data from the International Monetary Fund.
Punishing sanctions on the regime by the United States and European Union have failed to topple the populist incumbent, who argues that Venezuela’s woes are due to being a victim of an “economic war.”
Around eight million Venezuelans have fled the country amid shortages of vital goods and soaring inflation.
There has been mounting concern that the opposition will not see a fair contest as Maduro’s government controls all public institutions in Venezuela and has been accused of rigging previous votes, which it denied. Experts note, however, that concerns of vote tampering may be mitigated by the planned presence of opposition party representatives at each polling station.
The opposition coalition reported what they said were minor irregularities on Sunday, but voting proceedings appeared to be smooth in most of the country.
More than 21 million people are registered to vote, both in the country and abroad. Machado reported a 41% voter turnout by Sunday afternoon, which represents more than 9 million voters.
“This is huge. If this continues, it will be a historic participation figure,” Machado said in a statement released Sunday afternoon. “What you are seeing is the most important civic act in our history.”
Machado’s statement also spoke of reported “problems” at some voting stations. “In our monitoring there were 1,300 stations in which there were problems for our observers to enter. At this time there are only 13 tables with problems.”
Machado said 18 voting stations out 30,000 nationwide “couldn’t be set up.” The opposition leader also reported a “slowdown in the process and scanning of ID cards that is not justified in any way. We hope this will be eliminated and speed up the process.” However, Machado says these have been “exceptions to a process that develops peacefully.”
Electoral authorities say only an identity card is needed to be eligible to vote, and a Sunday statement from the election body, the National Electoral Council (CNE), said that there is no dress code for polling centers.
But in Caracas, a 55-year-old voter told CNN he was turned away from a polling center by soldiers for wearing cargo shorts. After queuing for several hours, Henrique Mendoza said the military patrolling around the center would not let him in due to his outfit.
When Maduro voted at 6 a.m. in the capital, he urged citizens to respect the results of the election. His main challenger González said the opposition coalition is “going to wait for the results from the National Electoral Council, however, we also have our methods and mechanisms to know the progress of today’s electoral process.”
The election campaign has seen at least 71 people arbitrarily detained – the majority of whom provided some sort of service to the opposition – and a dozen online media outlets blocked within the country, according to human rights organization Laboratorio de Paz.
The government has also created significant impediments for the millions of Venezuelans abroad to vote, including widely unattainable passport and residency requirements. Only 69,211 Venezuelans living abroad are eligible to vote in this year’s poll, according to data published by the CNE.
A limited group of election observers, including a team from The Carter Center – a non-profit organization set up by former US President Jimmy Carter – will be on the ground. But several international election observers have announced this week that they will no longer travel to Venezuela to monitor the vote.
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. The Venezuelan leader has said his victory will ensure “peace” in the country.
How the army reacts to the outcome could be an important factor in any scenario, but analysts say it impossible to parse where it stands.
“The military is absolutely key. But I must also say that the military is very hermetic, [and] it is very difficult to access information about what it is thinking,” Laura Cristina Dib, the Venezuela Program Director of Venezuela Program at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), told CNN.
Polls will close at 6 p.m ET.
With reporting from CNN’s Abel Alvarado, David Shortell and Michael Rios.