CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Some Venezuelans cast mock votes in a rehearsal Sunday less than a month before the highly anticipated election in which President Nicolas Maduro seeks a third term. The test allows Venezuela’s ruling party to gauge its voter-mobilizing powers, which have significantly diminished during Maduro’s crisis-ridden presidency.
The exercise, largely featuring ruling party supporters and public employees, is technically meant to help voters familiarize themselves with the fingerprint readers and electronic voting machines that will be used on July 28.
The election is shaping up to be the biggest challenge the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela has faced in its 25-year dominance that began with the presidency of the fiery Hugo Chávez. The party seeks to control all branches of government for six more years, but its base is divided, diminished and disappointed.
Participants in the capital, Caracas, early Sunday were mostly uniformed police officers and other law enforcement agents as well as employees of ministries and state-owned companies. They took photos of each other casting mock ballots to send proof of participation to organizers.
“At least for someone who doesn’t know or has not participated in previous electoral processes, they can familiarize themselves,” Beatriz Leon, 58, said outside a school. “You can see the entire ballot with all candidates.”
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In the 11 years since Venezuelans learned that Chávez was dead and his handpicked successor, Maduro, would take over, a drop in oil prices along with corruption and government mismanagement has sunk the country into a complex crisis. People have been pushed into poverty, hunger, poor health, crime and migration.
Economic sanctions imposed over the past decade have failed to topple Maduro, as the United States and other governments intended. They have contributed to the crisis.
Ten candidates, including Maduro, will be on the ballot. The only contender with a real chance of defeating the president is Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who represents the opposition’s Unitary Platform coalition.