Unlike previous elections in Venezuela, thousands of supporters of the typically fractured opposition have agreed to organize, mobilize and support voters during the highly anticipated July 28 presidential contest.
A supporter of opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez shows how to vote for him during pass out campaign flyers in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, July 19, 2024. The presidential election is set for July 28. – Tears roll down the face of Tanyia Colmenares when she recalls her truncated dream of being a lawyer, which ended after two semesters in law school when she had to drop out to survive Venezuela's complex crisis.
The western Venezuela city of Sabaneta is the cradle of Chavismo — the self-described socialist movement founded by the late President Hugo Chávez that has dominated Venezuela since the turn of the century. It is also where Colmenares is banding with nine other neighbors to promote the vote and ensure opposition supporters reach their polling place.
, including the ban from the race of María Corina Machado, the strongest challenger to Maduro’s bid for a third term in office., former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia.The opposition estimates that more than a half million people have registered for its somewhat loose structure of neighborhood groups nicknamed “comanditos” — or tiny commandos.
All have been instructed by the coalition to remain outside polling centers after voting to fight fear among voters and their voting center representatives, whose duties include securing a copy of tally certificates printed by electronic voting machines after polls close. Ruling party loyalists, including armed gangs, are known to have intimidated voting center representatives, known as witnesses, into staying home or abandoning their duties halfway through an election day.
The ruling party has traditionally obtained the bulk of its vote in these smaller polling places, and for this election, the electoral council added 1,700 single-machine centers. Reports of ruling party efforts to coerce and control voting during previous elections have mostly been associated with these one- and two-machine vote centers.
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