CARACAS, Venezuela — Tensions were high in voting centers across Venezuela on Sunday as beleaguered citizens cast ballots in an election that could bring an end to the authoritarian government of Nicolás Maduro and the socialist state that has controlled this crisis-stricken South American nation for a quarter-century.
The country’s opposition, long fractured and suffocated by the autocratic government, sees its best chance in more than a decade to unseat the strongman, whom many here blame for this oil-rich country’s economic collapse and the exodus of millions of migrants, hundreds of thousands of them to the United States.
Maduro has barred the opposition’s chosen candidate, arrested campaign workers and blocked access to state media. Still, the opposition says it can win — and by a landslide.
But in a country where the electoral council, courts and military are controlled by Maduro, the outcome remains far from certain. He and his team remain confident they can win, according to people familiar with conversations within the government who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the conversations. If he loses at the polls, he’s not expected to cede power willingly.
There were reports of blocked access, delays and some violence. In Maturín, a state capital some 350 miles east of Caracas, local opposition leaders said a voting center coordinator and her mother were demanding access for opposition poll watchers when members of a colectivo — armed Maduro supporters on motorbikes — rode up and shot the mother in the leg.
Voting centers were scheduled to open at 6 a.m. Sunday, but at a school in the Chacao neighborhood of Caracas, a group of 18 people arrived three hours early. They would wait for more than six hours, amid delays opening some voting tables.
By 9 a.m., some of the hundreds of people began to chant, “We want to vote!” Esther Pérez Villegas, whose husband was among those waiting, stepped in to help organize the lines. “Anxiety is high, very high, because of all of the uncertainty we feel,” she said.
Noemi Tovar, 61, had been in line since 3 a.m. “If I have to wait all day, I’ll wait all day,” she said.
“We’ve made lines here for many things — for food, for gasoline,” said Martha Salas, 62. “This is for so much more — for a vote.”
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said problems at voting centers “were exceptions to a process that is developing peacefully.”
“The way things are going, I think we are going to have, as they say, irreversible results,” she said at a voting center in Caracas.
The opposition is betting it can turn out voters for a victory so overwhelming that Maduro will be forced to accept the results and begin to negotiate his exit.
The number of eligible voters for the election is estimated at about 17 million. Several voting centers saw long lines. It was not possible to determine whether this reflected the greater turnout that the opposition has said is key to its victory, but some voters in Caracas said they hadn’t seen such long lines in many years.
“I haven’t seen this kind of voter intention since Chávez,” said Vladimir Ramos, a 60-year-old engineer waiting in line. Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, founded Venezuela’s socialist state in 1999 and led it until his death in 2013.
“I think people are no longer afraid,” said Natalie Moreno, 47.
By 12:40 p.m., Maduro addressed the nation to announce the activation of Operation Remate — a word meaning “finish it off” — a government-led effort to rally supporters to the polls. Maduro campaign staff and supporters called people to pressure them to vote and offer food and supplies.
“Let’s mobilize ourselves with force,” Maduro said in a message aired by state television. “Let’s vote with strength as was planned, and with the force of the” social programs.
The government aid was flowing in the rural eastern state of Delta Amacuro. In an Indigenous community there, people were being offered bags of food in exchange of support, said Yoxsamar Jimenez, a poll watcher for the opposition.
“But that’s normal here,” she said. More concerning, she said: Poll watchers were not allowed inside, and the center’s coordinator hit Jimenez.
“To avoid violence, we couldn’t do anything so we had to leave the table,” Jimenez said. “The table is alone and they’re doing whatever they want in that center.”
If Maduro loses, the United States could play a critical role in a potential negotiated transition, offering legal incentives and relief from sanctions to give Maduro a way out that doesn’t lead him straight to prison.
The United States stands ready to “consider measures that would facilitate a peaceful transition of power,” a senior Biden administration official said Friday, speaking on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the administration.
A Maduro defeat would be a significant foreign policy win for the Biden administration. U.S. officials negotiated a deal last year in which Maduro pledged to hold a competitive election in exchange for some sanctions relief. With irregular immigration at the center of the U.S. presidential campaign, success in Venezuela could boost Vice President Harris’s bid against former president Donald Trump.
Venezuela’s opposition’s candidate, the former diplomat Edmundo González, was unknown to most Venezuelans just months ago. Now polls predict he could beat Maduro by double digits. He’s a stand-in for longtime Maduro critic Machado, the “Iron Lady” who draws tens of thousands of Venezuelans to her near-messianic campaign caravans — and has been disqualified from running by Maduro’s supreme court.
Her campaign focuses on a simple message: Vote for us, and your loved ones can come home.
“The central theme is family, in the sense that this could be the last opportunity to reunite our families,” she told The Washington Post. “This is not just an electoral campaign. This is a redemption movement, for liberation.”
Maduro’s campaign has portrayed the opposition as an extreme, right-wing threat that would bring instability.
Some voters in Caracas seemed to agree. Hector Trujillo, a 79-year-old retired architect, said he was voting for “peace” and the continued improvement of the economy. He blamed U.S. sanctions for the country’s troubles. He feared the opposition would “eliminate everything,” including the country’s welfare benefits.
The run-up to the election has been far from free and fair. European Union observers who planned to monitor the vote were disinvited, leaving only small teams from the Atlanta-based Carter Center, a U.N. panel of experts and a grass-roots group of thousands of ordinary Venezuelans who have been training to watch polling centers.
Machado gave a call to action last week: Vote early, stay near the polls and alert the opposition to any suspicious activity. “We will all become citizen reporters,” she said.
Venezuelan Davis Salazar, a retired firefighter, lives in Canada. He has returned home to vote.
“The people woke up. It’s been 25 years of robbing and destroying a people,” said Salazar, 65. “If people want change, they need to go out and vote. Otherwise, we will continue with the same.”
Victor Manuel Morina Parra, a 59-year-old bus driver, said he has noticed discontent among his passengers. He moved from his farm in the countryside to the Katia neighborhood of Caracas, he said, because his rural town was “in a state of total abandonment.”
“We no longer have help from the government. There’s no fuel, the electricity goes out every eight hours,” he said. “That’s why we want change. For our children, for our grandchildren.”
Venezuelans are watching the armed forces and how they respond to any attempt to manipulate the election.
Leopoldo López, an opposition leader, said members of the military should consider their own interests, “their own stability, their own future.”
“Today, with Edmundo, a transition could be a better source of stability,” he said, “rather than Maduro telling them to go out to kill, to repress, to impose the state.”
Maduro has warned of a “bloodbath” if he loses.
“The destiny of Venezuela depends on our victory,” he told rallygoers this month. “If we want to avoid a bloodbath or a fratricidal civil war triggered by the fascists, then we must guarantee the biggest electoral victory ever.”
Maduro’s defense minister, Vladimir Padrino López, said last week he would uphold the law. He called for “the one who won to take charge of his government project and the one who lost, go to rest. That’s all.”
