Venezuelans anxiously await the outcome of an election that could end the one-party system

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans anxiously awaited the results of Sunday’s presidential election, which could pave the way for an end to 25 years of one-party rule, even though some polling stations remained open more than three hours after the closing date.

President Nicolás Maduro, seeking a third term, faced his biggest challenge yet: an unlikely opponent: Edmundo González, a retired diplomat who was unknown to voters until he was appointed at the last minute in April as a replacement for opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.

Opposition leaders were already celebrating, online and outside some polling stations, what they believed was a landslide victory for González. Their hopes were bolstered by alleged exit polls showing a healthy margin of victory for González. Exit polls are not allowed under Venezuelan law.

“I’m so happy,” said Merling Fernández, a 31-year-old bank employee, as an opposition campaign representative left a polling station in a working-class neighborhood of Caracas to announce results showing González more than doubling Maduro’s vote. Dozens of people standing nearby broke into an impromptu rendition of the national anthem.

“This is the path to a new Venezuela,” Fernández added, holding back tears. “We are all tired of this yoke.”

Yet Maduro’s supporters showed no sign of giving up.

“We can’t show results, but we can show our faces,” a smiling Jorge Rodriguez, Maduro’s campaign manager, said at a news conference.

Polls were scheduled to close at 6 p.m., but more than three hours after the deadline, some polling stations in Caracas remained open and authorities remained silent. The opposition called on the National Electoral Council to begin counting votes.

“This is the decisive moment,” Machado, flanked by González, told reporters at their campaign headquarters.

Matias Delacroix / AP

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AP

Machado was careful not to claim she had won before authorities had announced the results, but she said she had already received copies of some official vote tallies, and they indicated record turnout. That was just what the opposition needed to defeat Maduro’s well-oiled electoral machine.

González was also enthusiastic, congratulating Venezuelans on the “historic” day and calling on his supporters to “celebrate in peace.”

Earlier, US Vice President Kamala Harris offered her support. “The United States stands with the people of Venezuela who made their voices heard in today’s historic presidential election,” Harris wrote on X. “The will of the Venezuelan people must be respected.”

Some of Maduro’s allies also radiated confidence.

“The ballot boxes express what the streets have said during the last months of campaigning,” Maduro’s son, Congressman Nicolas Maduro Guerra, said on X as night fell over the capital. “Victory for the Venezuelan people.”

But since no order had been given to close the polls, their optimism rang hollow.

Voters lined up at polling stations across the country on Sunday morning, sharing water, coffee and snacks for hours.

The election will have ramifications across the United States. Both opponents and supporters of the administration have indicated they would join the exodus of 7.7 million Venezuelans who have already left their homes for foreign countries if Maduro wins another six-year term.

Authorities have scheduled Sunday’s election to coincide with the 70th birthday of former President Hugo Chávez, the revered leftist agitator 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 driving down wages, fueling hunger, crippling the oil industry and separating families through migration.

Maduro, 61, faces an opposition party that has managed to unite behind a single candidate after years of internal divisions and election boycotts that derailed its ambitions to topple the ruling party.

Machado was blocked from running for office for 15 years by the Maduro-controlled Supreme Court. A former lawmaker, she won the opposition primary in October with more than 90% of the vote. After being blocked from running for president, she chose a university lecturer as her replacement on the ballot, but the National Electoral Council also banned her from registering. Then González, a political newcomer, was elected.

There are eight other candidates challenging Maduro on Sunday’s ballot, but only González poses a threat to Maduro’s position in power.

After the vote, Maduro said he would recognize the election results and urged all other candidates to publicly declare that they would do the same.

“Nobody is going to create chaos in Venezuela,” Maduro said. “I recognize and will recognize the election referee, the official announcements and I will make sure that they are recognized.”

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and once had Latin America’s most advanced economy. But the country went into free fall after Maduro took over. Falling oil prices, widespread shortages and hyperinflation that soared to over 130,000 percent led first to social unrest and then to mass emigration.

US economic sanctions to oust Maduro from power after his 2018 re-election – which was condemned as illegitimate by the US and dozens of other countries – have only worsened the crisis.

Maduro’s pitch to voters this election has been one of economic security, which he has tried to sell with tales of entrepreneurship and references to a stable exchange rate and lower inflation. The International Monetary Fund predicts the economy will grow 4% this year — among the fastest in Latin America — after contracting 71% from 2012 to 2020.

But most Venezuelans have seen no improvement in their quality of life. Many earn less than $200 a month, meaning families struggle to afford essential items. Some work second or third jobs. A basket of basic supplies—enough to feed a family of four for a month—costs an estimated $385.

Judith Cantilla, 52, voted to change those conditions.

“For me, the change in Venezuela is that there are jobs, that there is security, that there is medicine in the hospitals, that teachers and doctors are well paid,” she said as she cast her vote in the working-class Petare neighborhood of Caracas.

Elsewhere, Liana Ibarra, a manicurist in the Caracas region, stood in line at 3 a.m. Sunday with her backpack full of water, coffee and cassava snacks, only to find at least 150 people ahead of her.

“There used to be a lot of indifference towards elections, but that is no longer the case,” Ibarra said.

She said that if González loses, she will ask her relatives living in the U.S. to sponsor her and her son’s application to immigrate there legally. “We can’t handle it anymore,” she said.

The opposition is trying to exploit the huge inequality created by the crisis, which has seen Venezuelans exchange their country’s currency, the bolivar, for the US dollar.

González and Machado focused much of their campaign on Venezuela’s vast hinterland, which has not seen the economic activity seen in Caracas in recent years. They promised a government that would create enough jobs to attract Venezuelans living abroad to return home and reunite with their families.

After casting his ballot at a polling station next to a church in a wealthy Caracas neighborhood, González called on the country’s armed forces to respect “the decision of our people.”

“What we see today are lines of joy and hope,” González, 74, told reporters. “We will exchange hate for love. We will exchange poverty for progress. We will exchange corruption for honesty. We will say goodbye for reunion.”

According to a Caracas-based Delphos poll in April, about a quarter of Venezuelans are considering emigrating if Maduro wins on Sunday. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Most Venezuelans who migrated in the past 11 years settled in Latin America and the Caribbean. In recent years, many have begun to set their sights on the U.S.

Both campaigns are distinguished not only by the political movements they represent, but also by the way they play on the expectations and fears of voters.

Maduro’s campaign rallies featured lively electronic merengue dances and speeches attacking his opponents. But after drawing criticism from leftist allies such as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for a comment about a “bloodbath” if he lost, Maduro backed down. His son told the Spanish newspaper El Pais that the ruling party would hand over the presidency peacefully if it lost — a rare admission of vulnerability that is out of step with the triumphant tone of Maduro’s campaign.

In contrast, González and Machado’s rallies had crowds crying and chanting “Freedom! Freedom!” as the duo passed by. People gave the devout Catholics rosaries, walked along highways and passed through military checkpoints to get to their events. Others video-called their family members who had migrated to give them a glimpse of the candidates.

“We don’t want any more Venezuelans to leave. To those who have already left, I say that we will do everything we can to get them back here and we will welcome them with open arms,” ​​González said Sunday.

Associated Press editor Fabiola Sánchez contributed to this report.

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