President tipped for re-election despite Venezuela food crisis

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has been tipped to win a second six-year term following yesterday’s election, despite a deepening crisis that has made food scarce and inflation soar as oil production in the once wealthy nation plummets.

More than one million Venezuelans have abandoned their country for a better life abroad in recent years. Those staying have been forced to queue for hours to buy subsidised food and withdraw money that has become almost impossible to find.

While polls show Venezuelans overwhelmingly blame Mr Maduro for their mounting troubles, he is still heavily favoured to win thanks to a boycott of the election by his main rivals amid huge distrust of the nation’s electoral council, which is controlled by government loyalists.

Mr Maduro ended his campaign dancing before a cheering crowd in Caracas while blaming Venezuela’s increasingly dire outlook on a Usorchestrated “economic war”.

He said: “I extend my hands to all Venezuelans so that we can move forward together with love and take back our homeland,” adding: “I have seen the future of Venezuela and a historic victory awaits us.”

The leader was the handpicked successor to the late president Hugo Chavez, who launched Venezuela’s leftwing revolution.

The Trump administration has meanwhile added Diosdado Cabello, a key Maduro ally, to a growing list of top officials targeted by financial sanctions, accusing the socialist party boss of drug trafficking and embezzlement.

Mr Maduro’s main rival, the independent candidate Henri Falcon, has faced the dual challenge of running against a powerful incumbent while trying to convince sceptical Venezuelans to defy the boycott called by the main opposition coalition.

Blasting Mr Maduro as the “candidate of hunger”, he campaigned on a promise to dollarise wages pulverised by fivedigit inflation, accept humanitarian aid and seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund. All of the proposals have been rejected by Mr Maduro as surrendering to the US “empire”.

“I swear that I will liberate Venezuela from this dictatorship,” Mr Falcon shouted to supporters at his final campaign rally on Thursday in his home city of Barquisimeto.

Television evangelist Javier Bertucci, who has cut into Mr Falcon’s support by providing free soup at rallies, was also listed on the ballot paper.

0 Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro set to win a second term