Pedestrians walk near posters showing late Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez calling to vote for the pro government parties in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Dec. 5, 2015.
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Venezuelans were voting on Sunday in congressional elections that are seen as the first serious challenge to the ruling Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) in 17 years.
Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela won 46 seats in the single-chamber National Assembly, Lucena said. In a polling station located in western Caracas, opposition candidates Jorge Millan and Tomas Guanipa were attacked, allegedly by four government supporters who threw stones and bottles at them.
His term as president runs until 2019, unless the opposition wins a big enough majority to force him out by constitutional means. Hernandez also emphasized that the voting in over 14,500 polling stations with 40,000 voting booths are being carried out in a peaceful atmosphere. Opposition leaders said that if their coalition didn’t win it would be because the government cheated.
With a simple majority, lawmakers could pass an amnesty law to seek the release of jailed politicians such as Leopoldo Lopez, who was arrested for leading 2014 anti-government protests.
For Schechter, “a redistribution of power” within Maduro’s socialist party “could be stormy” if their leaders panic.
An opposition victory would be a major setback for the socialist revolution started 17 years ago by the late Hugo Chavez, who until his death in 2013 had an almost-magical hold on the political aspirations of Venezuela’s long-excluded masses.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, rejected today the media campaign against her country, imposed from centers of global power to discredit the electoral system of the South American country.
Venezuelans began voting today to elect the 167 members of the new National Assembly (one-chamber Congress) for the legislative period 2016-2021, amid a marked polarization between the ruling party and the opposition, reported dpa news.
According to the Cuban News Agency, the regional integration bloc Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) also sent a mission to observe Sunday’s elections.
“Venezuela is a bomb ready to explode”, he said.
Maduro has blamed his nation’s failing economy on what he calls an “economic war” which he claims has been waged on his government by the opposition party and its allies.
President Nicolas Maduro had repeatedly vowed in recent weeks to take to the streets and defend the socialist system build by his mentor Chavez if his party lost, though on Sunday, he appeared to soften his tone.
While the morning unfolded peacefully at Manuel Ramos Civic Center, other polling stations saw some violence. “I don’t want any more shortages”, Lila Oliveros, a humble 69-year-old housewife, said as she waited to vote at dawn at the school gates in the crowded slum of Petare, east of the capital. “Venezuela won”, former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said on Twitter.
Since Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez died in 2013, Venezuela’s economy, which relies heavily on crude oil exports, has descended into crisis.
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“A time of change is coming and the people are moving in that direction …”
