Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Maduro’s party aiming for Venezuelan victory
His foes boycott congressional election
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s congressional election on Sunday will likely give President Nicolas Maduro control over the country’s last major independent institution, but will do little to improve his image at home and abroad.
Maduro, who already has the loyalty of the courts, the military, prosecutors and other institutions, seeks to load the National Assembly with members of his United Socialist Party of Venezuela. Critics say he’s guaranteed that by rigging the system to smother the last remnants of democracy in Venezuela.
An opposition coalition led by U.S.-backed politician Juan Guaido is boycotting the vote. The European Union, the U.S. and several other nations have already declared the vote fraudulent.
“How’s Maduro’s fraud going?” Guaido tweeted, showing pictures of an empty polling place. “Failed.”
Despite Venezuela’s political turmoil, voting took place with no apparent problems in Caracas, where polling places were operated by civilian militia members and armed soldiers alongside election workers.
Venezuela’s Supreme Court this year appointed a new elections commission, including three members who have been sanctioned by the U.S. and Canada, without participation of the opposition-led Congress, as the law requires.
The court also removed the leadership of three opposition parties, appointing new leaders the opposition accuses of conspiring to support Maduro.
Maduro has campaigned for his party’s candidates — including his son and wife — promising to finally silence the right-wing opposition, which he accuses of inciting violent protests and inviting U.S. sanctions.
“There are those who plot coups, those who ask for military intervention,” Maduro said on Saturday night in a broadcast on state television, dismissing criticism of the election. “We say: Votes yes — war no, bullets no.”
Guaido’s opposition movement is holding its own referendum over several days immediately after the election. It will ask Venezuelans whether they want to end Maduro’s rule and hold new presidential elections.
Polls indicate that neither Maduro nor Guaido are popular among Venezuelans at a time the nation’s economic and political crisis is deepening despite having the world’s largest oil reserves.
Maduro, the hand-picked successor to the late President Hugo Chavez, won a second term in 2018. But his political adversaries and scores of nations, including the U.S., reject his legitimacy, alleging the vote was rigged and his most popular challengers were banned.
Guaido, 37, vowed to oust 58-year-old Maduro early last year — basing his claim to the interim presidency on his leadership of the National Assembly, whose term legally ends in early January under the constitution.
President Donald Trump’s administration and other countries led support of Guaido and have said they will continue to support him in the absence of what they consider fair elections.
Washington has hit Maduro and his political allies with sanctions, and the U.S. Justice Department has indicted Maduro as a “narcoterrorist,” offering a $15 million reward for his arrest.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Sunday’s election was fraudulent.
“The results announced by the illegitimate Maduro regime will not reflect the will of the Venezuelan people,” he said on Twitter. “What’s happening today is a fraud and a sham, not an election.”
International bodies like the European Union have refused to send observers to Sunday’s election, saying the conditions for a democratic process don’t exist.
Maduro’s government invited sympathetic international observers, former Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador. others included a group of men who identified themselves as Turkish lawmakers.