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Fear of violence hangs over Venezuela assembly election
Fear of violence hangs over Venezuela assembly election
(about 2 hours later)
Streets were near-deserted on Sunday as Venezuelans trickled to the polls to elect a constitutional super-body that United Socialist party leader President Nicolás Maduro has vowed would begin a new era for the crisis-stricken nation.
Venezuela’s tense political showdown appeared to be coming to a head on Sunday as the government held a vote for a new constitutional assembly that most citizens say they don’t want, while security forces tried to quash opposition protests throughout the country.
Maduro, under fire for overseeing an economic collapse during four years in office, has pressed ahead with the vote to create the all-powerful assembly despite the threat of further US sanctions and months of opposition protests in which more than 115 people have been killed.
At least two people were killed, a member of the opposition and a pro-government candidate, in the hours before polls opened at 6am. José Félix Pineda, a candidate running for the assembly, was shot dead in his home on Saturday night in Bolivar state, while Ricardo Campos, a youth secretary with the opposition Acción Democrática, was killed during a protest.
Opposition parties are boycotting what they call a rigged election and have planned protests on highways across the country. Scuffles have already been reported in the provinces – raising the prospect of violent clashes with troops deployed to safeguard the vote.
President Nicolás Maduro, who called the vote for a new legislative body that will have the power to rewrite the constitution, was among the first to cast his vote. “The first vote for peace,” he said afterwards.
Authorities confirmed there were two deaths on Saturday, including the killing of a candidate to the assembly during a robbery, while the opposition put the total death toll during the day’s protests at five.
Maduro accused rightwing governments of trying to sabotage “21st-century socialism”.
Critics have said the assembly would allow Maduro to dissolve the opposition-run congress, delay future elections and rewrite electoral rules to prevent the socialists from being voted out of power in the once-prosperous Opec nation.
“The ‘emperor’ Donald Trump wanted to halt the Venezuelan people’s right to vote,” he said. “A new era of combat will begin. We’re going all out with this constituent assembly.”
The opposition has vowed to redouble its resistance and US president Donald Trump has promised broader economic sanctions against Venezuela after the vote, suggesting the oil-rich nation’s crisis is set to escalate.
But as the morning advanced, turnout appeared to be low, with many voters either heeding the opposition’s call to stay away, or too afraid of potential violence on the streets to cast their vote.
“Even if they win today, this won’t last long,” said opposition supporter Berta Hernandez, a 60-year-old doctor, in a wealthy Caracas district. “I’ll continue on the streets because, not long from now, this will come to an end.”
In the working-class district of Petare, where many residents said they had been threatened with losing government subsidies or jobs if they did not vote, few people turned out to voting centres on Sunday morning, residents said.
Undeterred, Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader narrowly elected in 2013 a month after the death of Hugo Chávez, has accused right-wing governments of trying to sabotage “21st century socialism”.
But at Caracas’s Poliedro sporting arena, where voters unable to reach their designated polling centre were permitted to cast their votes, state-run media reported that queueing had begun at 4am.
“We’re going all out with this constituent assembly,” said Maduro, as he voted at 6am in a low-income area of the capital Caracas.
The opposition has boycotted the vote as unconstitutional and is demanding Venezuela hold general elections instead. It had called for a mass demonstration in Caracas on Sunday but security forces blocked the arrival of protesters at the meeting point using tear gas to disperse the crowd, witnesses said. A small group of protesters blocked access to some of the voting places.
With polls showing some 70% of Venezuelans oppose the constituent assembly, Maduro’s administration is hoping to avoid a low turnout, which would further undermine his legitimacy.
“The oppressive forces didn’t allow us to even get to the meeting point,” said protester Emilia López, 23. “It is frustrating that they try to keep us quiet with bombs.”
Venezuela’s 2.8 million state employees are under huge pressure to vote – with some two dozen sources telling Reuters they had been threatened with dismissal if they did not.
“Even if they win today, this won’t last long,” said opposition supporter Berta Hernandez, a 60-year-old doctor, in a Caracas district. “I’ll continue on the streets because, not long from now, this will come to an end.”
At state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), workers received text messages asking them to send in their national identification number once they had voted, two sources said. They said they feared the plan was to identify who had sat out the election.
Black smoke billowed from the flames of several motorcycles torched in Caracas’s Plaza Francia, centre of the mostly opposition Atlantic neighbourhood of Altamira.
The electoral council has ordered journalists to go no closer than 500 metres from voting centres, a move the opposition says is designed to hide paltry turnout.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado told reporters that this moment was the beginning of a new phase for Venezuela.
Fuelling anger against Maduro is an economic meltdown in the country of 32 million people, which was once a magnet for European migrants thanks to a booming economy that was the envy of Latin America.
The defence minister, Vladimir Padrino López, told reporters that a 130,000-strong security force was “actively containing” flareups across the country, adding that as many as 100 voting machines had been destroyed.
But after nearly two decades of Socialist party rule, currency and price controls have seen many businesses vanish.
Security cordons were set up 500 metres around each voting centre and reporters were not allowed beyond that point to witness people casting their votes.
Millions of Venezuelans now struggle to eat three times a day due to product shortages and steep inflation that has put products like rice and flour out of reach.
After more than four months of protests sparked by the pro-government supreme court decision to strip the opposition-controlled parliament of its legislative powers, the government banned protests ahead of Sunday’s vote.
Venezuelans rummaging through garbage or begging by food stores are a common sight.
Maduro has said the 545-seat assembly, for which only pro-government candidates are running, will help bring peace to the politically split country, but the opposition, and increasingly the international community, have warned that it will turn the oil-rich but economically struggling nation into a fully fledged dictatorship.
“Sometimes I take bread from my mouth and give it to my two kids,” said pharmacy employee Trina Sanchez, 28, as she waited for a bus to work. “This is a farce. I want to slap Maduro.”
The new assembly will be convened within 72 hours of the election and will function with virtually unlimited powers. Maduro and his closest allies have vowed to use the assembly to jail key opposition leaders, remove the country’s outspoken chief prosecutor from her post and strip opposition legislators of their constitutional immunity.
To show the scale of public anger, the opposition earlier this month organised an unofficial referendum over Maduro’s plan.
Polls show that Maduro, successor to the wildly popular Hugo Chávez, who set the country on a socialist path, has only about a 20-point approval rating and that 70% of Venezuelans do not want the constitution of 1999 rewritten.
A strong turnout of more than 7 million voters overwhelmingly rejected the constituent assembly and voted in favour of early general elections.
Maduro said on Saturday that the assembly would act as a “superpower (...) above and beyond every other”. The assembly, he said in a television address ahead of the vote, will be empowered to strip opposition legislators of immunity from prosecution. “The right wing already has its prison cell waiting,” the president said.
But democratic pathways to political change have been blocked. The opposition’s bid last year to hold a recall referendum against Maduro was foiled, regional elections were postponed and the president has repeatedly ignored the opposition-led congress.
The US has led other nations in imposing targeted sanctions against 13 current and former officials close to the government. They were followed by Mexico and Colombia, who imposed similar measures.
As global condemnation mounts, the US last week sanctioned 13 socialist party leaders, in part as a response to the election, and Colombia’s president Juan Manuel Santos said his country would not recognise the constituent assembly.
The Trump administration had threatened further measures if the vote went ahead, which may affect Venezuela’s oil industry, one of the few economic lifelines left in the country.
Furious that Maduro is ploughing ahead and fearful of what will come after Sunday, some opposition activists were trying to block the vote.
Additional reporting by Ana Sofia Romero in Caracas
In the western state of Táchira, several hundred people on Saturday burned voting machines set up in two schools.
About 50 polling stations in that state are not in operation because demonstrators destroyed voting materials or prevented them from being set up in the first place, according to an opposition representative.
Government assembly candidate Felix Pineda, 39, was shot dead during a robbery at his home on Saturday night in the state of Bolivar, the state prosecutor’s office said. A 38-year-old man was killed during a protest in the mountainous state of Merida on Saturday, the office added.
Enthusiasm was low even among many supporters of “Chavismo,” the movement founded by Chávez, Maduro’s more charismatic predecessor who enjoyed high oil prices for much of his time in office.
“The people haven’t been listened to. Only the top brass rules,” said Mariela Infante, a community leader in Bolivar, as she shuttled people to vote.
“There are many people in power who are not revolutionaries in their heart, but those of us who are supporting this constituent assembly are from the people.”
Voters do not have the choice of whether to proceed with the assembly, only to select its 545 members from more than 6,100 candidates representing a broad array of United Socialist party allies.
The assembly is due to sit within 72 hours of results being certified. A significant portion of its seats are expected to go to government loyalists such as former vice president (under Chávez) Diosdado Cabello Rondón and Maduro’s wife and son.
