Venezuela, Caracas
CNN
 — 

Venezuelans are anxiously awaiting the results of a extremely consequential presidential election after casting their votes Sunday, wherein the nation’s longtime strongman, Nicolas Maduro, faces one in every of his biggest political challenges but, say analysts.

Folks started lining exterior polling facilities at daybreak, casting votes all through the day — although it stays unclear when the electoral authorities will announce the outcomes.

As night time fell, lots of these out on the streets voiced issues that the opposition is not going to see a good contest, as Maduro’s authorities controls all public establishments in Venezuela and has been accused of rigging earlier votes, which it denied.

Consultants had stated that opposition get together representatives can be current at every polling station to look at towards vote tampering and to make sure equity. However on Sunday night time, the opposition’s foremost witness stated she and different members had been denied entry to the Nationwide Electoral Council (CNE) because it collates the ends in the capital Caracas.

Delsa Solórzano, president of the Citizen Encounter Occasion, half of a bigger opposition coalition, additionally stated CNE had stopped sending voting knowledge from polling stations to the central authority, to forestall extra votes from being processed. She added that she had tried contacting the CNE, with none response.

CNN has reached out to the CNE, which has not but commented on the allegations.

Maduro, who took the mantle of the ruling Chavismo motion after his predecessor Hugo Chavez’s loss of life in 2013, is looking for his third consecutive six-year time period in workplace. Of the 9 different candidates working for the presidency, his greatest challenger is a unified opposition motion that overcame their divisions to type a coalition often known as the Democratic Unitary Platform.

The opposition motion has maintained its momentum regardless of sustained authorities repression, wherein their first-choice candidate, María Corina Machado, was disqualified from working. Machado, an avowed capitalist who has promised privatization of a number of state industries, has since rallied for her alternative, the soft-spoken former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia.

The vote has come at a vital second for Venezuela, which has skilled violent repression below Maduro’s watch and the worst financial collapse of a peacetime nation in current historical past. The oil-rich nation, as soon as the fifth-largest financial system in Latin America, has seen its financial system shrink within the final decade to the equal of a medium-sized metropolis, based on knowledge from the Worldwide Financial Fund. 

Punishing sanctions on the regime by the USA and European Union have didn’t topple the populist incumbent, who argues that Venezuela’s woes are as a result of being a sufferer of an “financial struggle.”

Round eight million Venezuelans have fled the nation amid shortages of important items and hovering inflation, and others will really feel compelled to depart if Maduro wins, says the opposition coalition that has promised to revive Venezuela’s democracy.

Fleeing Venezuelans “would create big strain and destabilization within the area. And naturally, within the south border of the USA, however within the nation,” opposition chief Machado stated Sunday, including that an opposition victory would carry “hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans … again house.”

On Sunday, some voters in Caracas appeared optimistic for change. “[After] 25 years, I see that there’s a actual probability to vary. I see lots of people getting collectively to vote,” voter Mariana Schemel stated.

“I’m doing this for my youngsters and my grandchildren,” voter Amelia Perez informed CNN. She has three sons, one in every of whom resides in Washington, D.C. “I would like him to return again and I don’t need my youngsters to depart. All the remainder of my household already left.”

Voters got here out in droves to vote on Sunday, based on the opposition coalition. Outdoors a polling station in Caracas, Venezuelans chanted “we wish to vote” as they waited for hours in line to get to the poll field. Overseas, Venezuelan expatriates rallied in Miami, Florida, and the Peruvian capital Lima.

Greater than 21 million persons are registered to vote, each within the nation and overseas. The opposition coalition reported in a while Sunday afternoon a 54.8% voter turnout, representing a minimum of 11.7 million voters.

“That is big. If this continues, it will likely be a historic participation determine,” Machado stated in a press release launched Sunday afternoon. “What you’re seeing is a very powerful civic act in our historical past.”

There have been additionally minor “issues” at some voting stations, together with a small variety of stations that couldn’t be arrange and delays in processing voters’ ID playing cards, Machado stated.

And in Caracas, 55-year-old voter Henrique Mendoza informed CNN he was turned away from a polling middle by troopers for carrying cargo shorts, after queuing for hours – regardless of the CNE beforehand saying there is no such thing as a gown code for polling facilities.

When Maduro voted at 6 a.m. within the capital, he urged residents to respect the outcomes of the election. His foremost challenger González stated the opposition coalition is “going to attend for the outcomes from the Nationwide Electoral Council, nonetheless, we even have our strategies and mechanisms to know the progress of as we speak’s electoral course of.”

The election marketing campaign has seen a minimum of 71 individuals arbitrarily detained – nearly all of whom offered some form of service to the opposition – and a dozen on-line media retailers blocked throughout the nation, based on human rights group Laboratorio de Paz.

The federal government has additionally created important impediments for the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans overseas to vote, together with extensively unattainable passport and residency necessities. Solely 69,211 Venezuelans dwelling overseas are eligible to vote on this yr’s ballot, based on knowledge printed by the CNE.

A restricted group of election observers, together with a crew from The Carter Middle – a non-profit group arrange by former US President Jimmy Carter – can be on the bottom. However a number of worldwide election observers have introduced this week that they are going to not journey to Venezuela to observe the vote.

Latin American leaders, together with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have known as on Maduro to decide to stepping down if he loses. Venezuelan opposition figures have additionally appealed to the nation’s army, that has lengthy supported Maduro and his predecessor, to respect the outcomes. The Venezuelan chief has stated his victory will guarantee “peace” within the nation.

The Biden administration has been monitoring the elections, telling reporters on Friday that the US stands ready to levy further sanctions towards Venezuela if the democratic course of will not be allowed to unfold.

Vice President Kamala Harris stated “the will of the Venezuelan individuals have to be revered” in a submit on X, including that “regardless of the numerous challenges, we’ll proceed to work towards a extra democratic, affluent, and safe future for the individuals of Venezuela.”

How the military reacts to the result could possibly be an necessary consider any situation, however analysts say it unimaginable to parse the place it stands.

“The army is completely key. However I need to additionally say that the army may be very airtight, [and] it is extremely tough to entry details about what it’s considering,” Laura Cristina Dib, the Venezuela Program Director of Venezuela Program on the Washington Workplace on Latin America (WOLA), informed CNN.

With reporting from CNN’s Abel Alvarado, David Shortell and Michael Rios.