Voters in Venezuela are choosing lawmakers, governors and other officials Sunday in polling being held against a backdrop of heightened government repression and opposition calls to boycott the election.<\/p>\n
The election is the first to allow broad voter participation since last year\u2019s presidential contest, which President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro claimed to have won despite credible evidence to the contrary. It is taking place two days after the government detained dozens of people, including a prominent opposition leader, and linked them to an alleged plot to hinder the vote.<\/p>\n
In the first hours after polls opened, members of the military outnumbered voters in some voting centers in the capital, Caracas. No lines formed outside the centers, including the country\u2019s largest \u2014 a stark contrast with the hundreds of people gathered around the same time for the July 28 presidential election, The AP news reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to vote,” said truck driver Carlos Le\u00f3n, 41, standing near a desolate polling station in Caracas. “I don\u2019t believe in the (electoral authority). I don\u2019t think they\u2019ll respect the vote. Nobody forgets what happened in the presidential elections. It\u2019s sad, but it\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Voter participation, in the eyes of the opposition, legitimizes Maduro\u2019s claim to power and his government\u2019s repressive apparatus, which after the July presidential election detained more than 2,000 people including protesters, poll workers, political activists and minors, to quash dissent. Meanwhile, the ruling party is already touting overwhelming victory across the country, just as it has done in previous regional elections regardless of opposition participation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Voters in Venezuela are choosing lawmakers, governors and other officials Sunday in polling being held against a backdrop of heightened government repression and opposition calls to boycott the election. The election is the first to allow broad voter participation since last year\u2019s presidential contest, which President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro claimed to have won despite credible evidence …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-news-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49272,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49271\/revisions\/49272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}