Venezuelan vote rocked by violence
Troops break up demonstrations against election boycotted by the opposition
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro defiantly followed through Sunday with his pledge to hold an internationally condemned election, creating a critical new stage in a long-simmering crisis that could mint the Western Hemisphere’s newest dictatorship.
The vote began unfolding Sunday at dawn under the watchful eye of 326,000 troops. Government forces took a zero-tolerance stance with protests, hurling volleys of stinging tear gas and storming squares in what amounted to a dark turning point for this oil-rich nation after four months of intensifying repression.
The election will create what critics call a puppet congress with vast powers to rewrite the constitution and supplant the opposition-controlled National Assembly, leaving all branches of government under firm socialist control.
Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Panama, Peru and the United States said they would not recognize Sunday’s vote. Canada and Mexico also issued statements repudiating the election.
The move represents a direct challenge to the Trump administration — which called on Maduro, the anointed successor of late leftist firebrand Hugo Chávez, to cancel the vote. Thirteen nations from the Organization of American States had urged Maduro to cancel the vote.
On Sunday, members of the opposition, which boycotted the vote, set up barricades in parts of the capital and beyond, and pledged protests. But the government was deploying force in the streets. In a scene repeated at various spots in the capital, a cluster of peaceful demonstrators were chanting for democracy and waving the yellow, blue and red Venezuelan flag in the city’s Plaza Francia when riot troops suddenly materialized.
They fired volleys of tear gas, sending demonstrators fleeing for cover.
“Today we protest for the freedom of the country, for the political prisoners, for the fallen, for the people who’ve died looking for a better future … There are not enough people here because of fear,” said a thin young man who broke away and ran as government forces took the square. Later, clusters of demonstrators returned, only to be chased again by troops.
Opposition leader Freddy Guevara said at least eight protesters were killed nationwide, adding to a death toll that already tops 100.
A radical faction of government opponents — known as the Resistance — also used force. Around noon in the city’s east, a protester in his 20s placed what appeared to be explosives inside a bag lying on the street. Five minutes later, as troops passed by in a motorcade, the bag detonated, throwing at least two of the men to the floor.
The nation’s 2.8 million state workers risked losing their jobs for not turning out to cast ballots. Poor residents were warned that they could lose access to food baskets and government housing for failure to vote in the election, in which the candidates are all government backers.
The Associated Press said Venezuelans appeared to be abstaining in massive numbers on Sunday.