CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelans voted Sunday in a presidential election whose outcome will either lead to a seismic shift in politics or extend by six more years the policies that caused the world’s worst peacetime economic collapse.
Whether it is President Nicolás Maduro who is chosen, or his main opponent, retired diplomat Edmundo González, the election will have ripple effects throughout the Americas. Government opponents and supporters alike have signaled their interest in joining the exodus of 7.7 million Venezuelans who have already left their homes for opportunities abroad should Maduro win another term.
Polls opened at 6 a.m., but voters started lining up at some voting centers across the country much earlier, sharing water, coffee and snacks for several hours.
Alejandro Sulbarán snagged the first spot at his voting center by getting in line at 5 p.m. Saturday. He said he stood outside an elementary school in a hillside suburb of the capital, Caracas, for “the future of the country.”
People are also reading…
“We are all here for the change we want,” Sulbarán, 74, who runs a maintenance business, said as other voters nodded in agreement.
The number of eligible voters for this presidential election was estimated to be around 17 million.
Polls were to begin closing at 6 p.m. It was unclear when electoral authorities would release the first results.
Authorities set Sunday’s election to coincide with what would have been the 70th birthday of former President Hugo Chávez, the revered leftist firebrand who died of cancer in 2013, leaving his Bolivarian revolution in the hands of Maduro. But Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela are more unpopular than ever among many voters who blame his policies for crushing wages, spurring hunger and separating families due to migration.
Maduro, 61, is facing off against an opposition that has managed to line up behind a single candidate after years of intraparty divisions and election boycotts that torpedoed their ambitions to topple the ruling party.
