CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans waited anxiously for the outcomes of Sunday’s presidential election that might pave the best way to an finish to 25 years of single celebration rule, whilst some polls remained open greater than three hours after a deadline to shut.

President Nicolás Maduro, in looking for a 3rd time period, confronted his hardest problem but from the unlikeliest of opponents: Edmundo González, a retired diplomat who was unknown to voters earlier than being tapped in April as a last-minute stand-in for opposition powerhouse Maria Corina Machado.

Opposition leaders had been already celebrating, on-line and out of doors just a few voting facilities, what they assured was a landslide victory for González. Their hope was boosted by purported exit polls displaying a wholesome margin of victory for González. Exit polls will not be allowed beneath Venezuelan legislation.

“I’m so blissful,” mentioned Merling Fernández, a 31-year-old financial institution worker, as a consultant for the opposition marketing campaign walked out of 1 voting middle in a working class neighborhood of Caracas to announce outcomes displaying González greater than doubled Maduro’s vote depend. Dozens standing close by erupted in an impromptu rendition of the nationwide anthem.

“That is the trail towards a brand new Venezuela,” added Fernández, holding again tears. “We’re all bored with this yoke.”

Maduro supporters weren’t displaying any indicators of chucking up the sponge, nevertheless.

“We are able to’t give outcomes, however we will present face,” a smiling Jorge Rodriguez, marketing campaign chief for Maduro, mentioned at a press convention.

Polls had been supposed to start closing at 6 p.m. however greater than three hours after the deadline some voting facilities in Caracas remained open and authorities had been silent. The opposition known as for the Nationwide Electoral Council to start counting ballots.

“That is the decisive second,” Machado, flanked by González, instructed reporters at their marketing campaign headquarters.

Machado was cautious to not declare victory earlier than authorities announce outcomes however mentioned she had already obtained copies of some official voting tallies and so they indicated a document turnout — precisely what the opposition wanted to beat Maduro’s well-greased electoral machine.

González was equally enthused, congratulating Venezuelans on the “historic” day and urging supporters to “have a good time in peace.”

Earlier, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris provided her help. “The USA stands with the folks of Venezuela who expressed their voice in at present’s historic presidential election,” Harris wrote on X. “The desire of the Venezuelan folks have to be revered.”

A couple of Maduro allies had been additionally projecting confidence.

“The poll containers specific what the streets mentioned throughout these previous few months of campaigning,” Maduro’s son, lawmaker Nicolas Maduro Guerra, mentioned on X as evening fell on the capital. “Victory for the Venezuelan folks.”

However within the absence of any order to shut polls, their optimism rang hole.

Voters began lining up at some voting facilities throughout the nation earlier than daybreak Sunday, sharing water, espresso and snacks for a number of hours.

The election could have ripple results all through the Americas, with authorities opponents and supporters alike signaling their curiosity in becoming a member of the exodus of seven.7 million Venezuelans who’ve already left their properties for alternatives overseas ought to Maduro win one other six yr time period.

Authorities set Sunday’s election to coincide with what would have been the seventieth birthday of former President Hugo Chávez, the revered leftist firebrand who died of most cancers in 2013, leaving his Bolivarian revolution within the fingers of Maduro. However Maduro and his United Socialist Occasion of Venezuela are extra unpopular than ever amongst many citizens who blame his insurance policies for crushing wages, spurring starvation, crippling the oil trade and separating households as a consequence of migration.

Maduro, 61, is going through off in opposition to an opposition that has managed to line up behind a single candidate after years of intraparty divisions and election boycotts that torpedoed their ambitions to topple the ruling celebration.

Machado was blocked by the Maduro-controlled supreme courtroom from operating for any workplace for 15 years. A former lawmaker, she swept the opposition’s October major with over 90% of the vote. After she was blocked from becoming a member of the presidential race, she selected a school professor as her substitute on the poll, however the Nationwide Electoral Council additionally barred her from registering. That’s when González, a political newcomer, was chosen.

Sunday’s poll additionally options eight different candidates difficult Maduro, however solely González threatens Maduro’s rule.

After voting, Maduro mentioned he would acknowledge the election end result and urged all different candidates to publicly declare that they might do the identical.

“Nobody goes to create chaos in Venezuela,” Maduro mentioned. “I acknowledge and can acknowledge the electoral referee, the official bulletins and I’ll be certain that they’re acknowledged.”

Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest confirmed oil reserves, and as soon as boasted Latin America’s most superior financial system. But it surely entered right into a free fall after Maduro took the helm. Plummeting oil costs, widespread shortages and hyperinflation that soared previous 130,000% led first to social unrest after which mass emigration.

Financial sanctions from the U.S. looking for to power Maduro from energy after his 2018 reelection — which the U.S. and dozens of different nations condemned as illegitimate — solely deepened the disaster.

Maduro’s pitch to voters this election is one in all financial safety, which he tried to promote with tales of entrepreneurship and references to a steady foreign money change and decrease inflation charges. The Worldwide Financial Fund forecasts the financial system will develop 4% this yr — one of many quickest in Latin America — after having shrunk 71% from 2012 to 2020.

However most Venezuelans haven’t seen any enchancment of their high quality of life. Many earn beneath $200 a month, which implies households battle to afford important gadgets. Some work second and third jobs. A basket of fundamental staples — adequate to feed a household of 4 for a month — prices an estimated $385.

Judith Cantilla, 52, voted to vary these situations.

“For me, change in Venezuela (is) that there are jobs, that there’s safety, there’s drugs within the hospitals, good pay for the academics, for the docs,” she mentioned, casting her poll within the working-class Petare neighborhood of Caracas.

Elsewhere, Liana Ibarra, a manicurist in better Caracas, bought in line at 3 a.m. Sunday together with her water, espresso and cassava snack-laden backpack solely to search out not less than 150 folks forward of her.

“There was numerous indifference towards elections, however not anymore,” Ibarra mentioned.

She mentioned that if González loses, she is going to ask her kinfolk dwelling within the U.S. to sponsor her and her son’s utility to legally to migrate there. “We are able to’t take it anymore,” she mentioned.

The opposition has tried to grab on the large inequalities arising from the disaster, throughout which Venezuelans deserted their nation’s foreign money, the bolivar, for the U.S. greenback.

González and Machado centered a lot of their campaigning on Venezuela’s huge hinterland, the place the financial exercise seen in Caracas lately didn’t materialize. They promised a authorities that will create adequate jobs to draw Venezuelans dwelling overseas to return dwelling and reunite with their households.

After voting at a church-adjacent ballot website in an upper-class Caracas neighborhood, González known as on the nation’s armed forces to respect “the choice of our folks.”

“What we see at present are traces of pleasure and hope,” González, 74, instructed reporters. “We are going to change hatred for love. We are going to change poverty for progress. We are going to change corruption for honesty. We are going to change goodbyes for reunions.”

An April ballot by Caracas-based Delphos mentioned a couple of quarter of Venezuelans had been occupied with emigrating if Maduro wins Sunday. The ballot had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 proportion factors.

Most Venezuelans who migrated over the previous 11 years settled in Latin America and the Caribbean. Lately, many started setting their sights on the U.S.

Each campaigns have distinguished themselves not just for the political actions they signify but in addition on how they’ve addressed voters’ hopes and fears.

Maduro’s marketing campaign rallies featured full of life digital merengue dancing in addition to speeches attacking his opponents. However after he caught warmth from leftist allies akin to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for a remark a couple of “massacre” ought to he lose, Maduro recoiled. His son instructed the Spanish newspaper El Pais that the ruling celebration would peacefully hand over the presidency if it loses — a uncommon admission of vulnerability out of step with Maduro marketing campaign’s triumphalist tone.

In distinction, the rallies of González and Machado prompted folks to cry and chant “ Freedom! Freedom! ” because the duo handed by. Individuals handed the religious Catholics rosaries, walked alongside highways and went by means of army checkpoints to succeed in their occasions. Others video-called their kinfolk who’ve migrated to allow them to catch a glimpse of the candidates.

“We don’t need extra Venezuelans leaving, and to those that have left I say that we are going to do the whole lot doable to get them again right here, and we are going to welcome them with open arms,” González mentioned Sunday.

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Related Press author Fabiola Sánchez contributed to this report.