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A few hours before the regional elections in Venezuela, the main challenge for the opposition is to regain confidence in the vote among its own followers, after three years and two consecutive elections calling for abstention, among other reasons, due to distrust in the vote. Electoral Power.
The candidates who oppose the government of Nicolás Maduro say they are aware that they are not facing totally free elections, but they consider that it is time to recover political spaces, organize their followers and turn the vote into an instrument of protest.
From a neighborhood in western Caracas, Tomas Guanipa, an opposition leader who returned to the country after two years in exile, warns that “there have been some small advances. We are not in free elections yet, we have to fight for free conditions so that we can elect a new government ”. Guanipa aspires to win the mayoralty of the Libertador municipality, ruled by Chavismo for 22 years.
But the most difficult thing for the opposition will not be to capitalize on a lower class dissatisfied with the government, but to convince a middle class that is visibly disappointed with its leaders, to go and vote for an opposition that has failed to agree on a strategy for change. of government. They even appear divided to the contest next Sunday, with multiple candidates who aspire to the same position.
For the analyst and president of the Datanálisis polling company, Luis Vicente León, next November 21 will also be the stage to revalidate the leadership within the position itself. León explains that the abstention strategy clearly failed. “If it did not change course, the opposition was condemned to the emergence of another opposition group and another outsourcing leadership that would take up the fight for change in Venezuela, they had to participate.”
On November 21, the authorities of 23 governorates and 335 mayors will be renewed, in addition to the municipal councils, for a total of 3,082 positions. For the first time in 15 years, the elections in Venezuela will have the presence of the International Observation Mission of the European Union. Datanalisis estimates a participation between 35 and 40% percent of those registered in the electoral roll.
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