CARACAS: Venezuelans headed to the polls Sunday for mayoral elections that the opposition is boycotting amid an economic crisis, giving President Nicolas Maduro's party a clear path to victory.
A few hours after polling stations were supposed to open, 98 percent of the 14,000 facilities were up and running, according to the National Election Council (CNE). Turnout appeared to be light.
The main opposition parties are staying away, saying the vote lacks any guarantees of fairness or transparency as voters pick 335 mayors across the country.
These are the last elections before presidential voting scheduled for late next year, in which Maduro says he will seek another term. Some analysts think they will be moved up to the early months of 2018.
The lack of a serious challenge Sunday to Maduro-aligned candidates has led to skepticism in the main cities of Caracas, Maracaibo and San Cristobal.
"I'm not going to vote because I don't believe in the transparency of the CNE," said Nerver Huerta, a 38-year-old graphic designer in Caracas.
Maduro's ruling socialist party will be aided by the refusal of the three main parties in the opposition coalition Democratic Union Roundtable (MUD) to participate, although smaller parties have decided to contest the election.
In the cards is a repeat of the electoral drubbing suffered by the opposition in October's regional elections, which they claim were fraudulent, analysts say.
- 'I will be there' -
Supporting the government are a combination of ideological loyalists and pragmatists aware that the electronic Fatherland Card issued by the government could help them get access to scarce medicine or food. Opposition critics call it bald-faced social control.
"The president, despite everything, has helped me. I could not be ungrateful," said William Lugo, 65.
"I will vote on Sunday, and if we have to re-elect him, I will be there," he said.
Victor Torres, a chauffeur in Maracaibo, said the election will do nothing to resolve what he considers to be the country's biggest woe: hyperinflation, estimated at 2,000 percent this year.
"The other day I went to buy a banana. In the morning it cost 1,900 bolivares and in the afternoon, 3,000. You can't live this way. I am disappointed with politicians," said Torres.
Yon Goicoechea is contesting the election against the wishes of his party because he says the opposition must "defend" its political space.
Goicoechea, who is running for mayor in a Caracas municipality, said the government "will try to steal the vote, but we will not give it away."
According to electoral expert Eugenio Martinez, the opposition would do well to hold on to even 50 percent of its 72 mayorships. Maduro loyalists hold 242. Others are held by independents.
"The absence of the main opposition parties and the pressure of the Chavez machinery make it unfeasible for the opposition to maintain even half of the mayorships it controls," Martinez told AFP.
Key opposition leaders Maria Corina Machado and Henrique Capriles left the coalition when four of the five elected opposition governors in the regional elections were sworn in before Maduro's Constituent Assembly, which he formed in July to bypass the opposition-dominated parliament.
A replacement for the fifth governor, whose election was nullified due to his refusal, will be elected on Sunday, and any opposition mayors elected will also have to be sworn in before the Assembly.
"They are not elections, but adjudications," Machado told AFP, adding that voting would mean recognizing the Constituent Assembly and thus constitute a "betrayal" of the 125 people killed this year in four months of anti-government protests.
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