Exit Polling in Venezuela Shows Opposition Beating Maduro By a Wide Margin

Opposition candidate Edmundo González, a stand-in for banned leader Maria Corina Machado, more than doubled President Nicolás Maduro’s support, Edison Research reported Sunday evening.

By Samantha Schmidt – Ana Vanessa Herrero – María Luisa Paúl

Updated July 28, 2024 – CARACAS, Venezuela — The Venezuelan opposition was hopeful of an election victory Sunday that could bring an end to the authoritarian government of Nicolás Maduro and the socialist state that has controlled this crisis-stricken South American nation for a quarter-century.

Exit polling released after voting centers began to close Sunday evening showed opposition candidate Edmundo González taking 65 percent of the vote, more than doubling Maduro’s 31 percent, Edison Research reported. Venezuelans were waiting for official results.

The opposition, suffocated by Maduro’s autocratic rule and historically hobbled by infighting, sees its best chance in more than a decade to unseat the strongman, whom many here blame for this oil-rich country’s economic collapse and the exodus of millions of migrants, hundreds of thousands of them to the United States.

Maduro has barred the opposition’s chosen candidate, arrested campaign workers and blocked access to state media. Still, the opposition says it can win — and by a landslide. A high turnout could provide a significant boost; by 4 p.m., González’s campaign estimated that 11.7 million Venezuelans had voted, a participation rate of more than 54 percent.

But in a country where the electoral council, courts and military are controlled by Maduro, the outcome remained far from certain. He and his team were confident they can win, according to people familiar with their conversations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the conversations. If he loses the vote, he’s not expected to cede power willingly.

There were reports of blocked access, delays and some violence. In Maturín, a state capital some 350 miles east of Caracas, local opposition leaders said a voting center coordinator and her mother were demanding access for opposition poll watchers when members of a colectivo — armed Maduro supporters on motorbikes — rode up and shot the mother in the leg.

Voting centers were scheduled to open 6 a.m. Sunday, but at a school in the Chacao neighborhood of Caracas, a group of 18 people arrived three hours early. They would wait for more than six hours, amid delays opening some voting tables.

By 9 a.m., some of the hundreds of people began to chant: “We want to vote!” Esther Pérez Villegas, whose husband was among those waiting, stepped in to help organize the lines. “Anxiety is high, very high, because of all of the uncertainty we feel,” she said.

Noemi Tovar, 61, had been in line since 3 a.m. “If I have to wait all day, I’ll wait all day,” she said.

“We’ve made lines here for many things — for food, for gasoline,” said Martha Salas, 62. “This is for so much more — for a vote.”

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said problems at voting centers “were exceptions to a process that is developing peacefully.”

“The way things are going, I think we are going to have, as they say, irreversible results,” she said at a voting center in Caracas.

WUNRN

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/07/28/venezuela-election-maduro-gonzalez/