The National Electoral Council of Venezuela (CNE) announced that out of the 335 electoral lists across the country, 156 of them had been designated, and of those 142 were won by the governing United Socialist Party on Sunday, with 92 percent of the vote counted by 10.30 p.m. local time.
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The local elections recorded a 27.4 percent of turnout in total, CNE President Tibisay Lucena also added that 449 out of 467 available nominal positions had been won by the PSUV.
At least 20,720,533 Venezuelans were eligible to choose about 4,900 councilor and their deputy posts. Of these, 20,490,543 were Venezuelan citizens and 230,010 voters and electors were foreigners with more than ten years of legal residence in the country.
In this election, the 25th since the start of the Bolivarian Revolution in 1999, a total of 1,073 councilors are being elected by a nominal vote, 685 by a list vote and 69 municipal Indigenous representatives. There have been 14,382 polling stations set up for the national event.
51 political organizations are participating in these regional elections, of which 21 are national political parties, 11 regional, five national Indigenous parties, and 14 regional Indigenous organizations.
The most relevant right-wing opposition parties decided to abstain, citing distrust in the electoral body and absence of equal conditions for political participation. However, individual members of parties like the Democratic Action and First Justice (Primero Justicia) have decided to participate in the elections, challenging the national leadership.
Some governments in Latin America have expressed support to the abstentionist strategy that relies on economic sanctions breaking the government or a possible military intervention against Venezuela. For critics of Venezuela’s right-wing opposition, their decision to reject electoral participation paves the way for more government victories, this time in the local level.
This is the 25th election in the 20 years of the Revolution, and the 5th in 18 months, marking the close of the popular election cycle. In total, about 600 people participated as observers.