Venezuelan polling sites see low turnout
CARACAS, Venezuela — Voting centers across Venezuela’s capital appeared largely empty for Sunday’s presidential election despite assurances from government officials that millions had turned out to vote by midmorning.
Opposition leaders said the lifeless voting centers were evidence that Venezuelans were heeding their call to abstain from voting in an election they contended was certain to be rigged in favor of socialist President Nicolas Maduro.
Meanwhile, both Maduro and two anti-government candidates who broke with the opposition’s push to boycott the election were urging voters to go to the polls.
“We’re not going to let a minority decide the destiny of this country,” said Javier Bertucci, a television evangelist who was considered a longshot in the race.
The main anti-Maduro candidate was considered to be Henri Falcon, a one-time socialist stalwart who broke with the president.
While polls say Venezuelans overwhelmingly blame Maduro for the country’s severe economic troubles, he was heavily favored 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.
Bertucci and Falcon both accused Venezuela’s electoral authorities Sunday of allowing what they called blatant violations, including political sloganeering near voting centers.
At numerous polling sites, socialist party supporters set up red tents nearby where they scanned government issued “Fatherland Cards” that voters said they hoped would bring them a cash bonus or even a free apartment.
Under Venezuela’s electoral law, any political activities must take place at least 200 meters from voting centers.
Falcon, a one-time acolyte of the late President Hugo Chavez, who implemented Venezuela’s socialist administration, said he had received at least 350 complaints from voters about the existence of the “Red Points” sites. He said some were vent set up inside voting centers. He called it a “pressure mechanism, an element of political and social blackmail” directed at a poorer sector of the population.
National Electoral Council president Tibisay Lucena later said officials had confirmed a handful of complaints and rectified any violations, but he insisted that overall they were “nothing in comparison to previous electoral processes.”
Maduro, setting an example for government supporters who he called on to vote early, cast his ballot in Caracas shortly after fireworks and loud speakers blasting a military hymn roused Venezuelans from sleep around 5 a.m.
He said Venezuelans would provide an example of democracy to the world and brushed back suggestions he was taking the country down an authoritarian path.
“It’s offensive when they say the Venezuelan people are falling under dictatorship,” he said after voting.
Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said about 2.5 million people had voted by 10 a.m.
In Petare, home to Caracas’ biggest slum, voters waited in line to have their “Fatherland Card” scanned by socialist party volunteers. A woman wearing the red,
yellow and blue colors of Venezuela’s flag scanned each card with her phone — verifying that cardholders had done their patriotic duty of voting, presumably for Maduro.
The election has drawn broad criticism since some of Maduro’s most-popular rivals were barred from running, and several more were forced into exile. Echoing the views of Venezuela’s tattered opposition movement, the United States, European Union and many Latin American countries said they would not recognize the results.