Venezuelans Elect President, Regional Legislative Councils

The polls are expected to close at 6:00 p.m. local time but those who are waiting to vote will be allowed to cast their vote beyond the set time

Voting centers opened throughout Venezuela Sunday when more than 20 million citizens vote to elect president and members of the regional legislative councils in a festive mood as it has been the case for the past few decades in which more than 20 elections have taken place.

The electoral centers in Venezuela opened their doors at 6:00 a.m. local time. The electoral process has already begun in several countries abroad, mainly in the regions of Europe and Asia.

The polls are expected to close at 6:00 p.m. local time but those who are waiting to vote will be allowed to cast their vote beyond the set time.

President Maduro already cast his vote early Sunday morning in Caracas before giving a speech calling on people to go to vote and rejecting accusations from the United States and its allies that his government is a “dictatorship.”

Henri Falcón, Javier Bertucci and Reinaldo Quijada are the opposition candidates who opted for the democratic way, unlike a faction of the opposition that called for abstention in favor of pushing for more sanctions, a military coup or foreign intervention.

Most polls have shown that the incumbent president and candidate Maduro leads the vote intention. He started with an advantage to win according to the majority of the polls.

Maduro held more than 30 mass events during the electoral campaign in the country’s 23 states where he presented the fundamental lines of the “Plan de la Patria” ot the plan for the homeland 2019-2025, a government project that received thousands of proposals from the Venezuelan people.

In that sense, the president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, reiterated that the electoral agency categorically rejects the attempts of interference and sabotage of some governments in the region and assured that the vote will go on in a democratic and fair way.