Weary Venezuelans In Low-turnout Win For Ruling Party

Venezuelans stayed away in droves Sunday from municipal elections, handing a victory to the ruling party -- but with just 27 percent turnout.

Caracas, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Dec, 2018 ) :Venezuelans stayed away in droves Sunday from municipal elections, handing a victory to the ruling party -- but with just 27 percent turnout.

National Electoral Council chair Tibisay Lucena put the rate of abstention at 72.6 percent. As such, the ruling party won 142 of 156 jurisdictions in play, she said.

Some 20.7 million Venezuelans were eligible to vote.

Lucena called it "a calm day of civic and democratic action." The results were hardly a suprise: analysts had predicted record low turnout, citing mistrust in the process, the banning of opposition parties and widespread exhaustion amid the ongoing socioeconomic crisis.

The elections come one month before President Nicolas Maduro begins his second six-year term after winning an election in May termed illegitimate by political opponents, the European Union, the United States and most of Latin America.

Maduro said Venezuelans "were exercising their right to vote freely.

" But Beatriz Pallares, 56, told AFP at a mostly empty polling station in the opposition bastion Chacao that "it's a sad day because people decided not to vote." But "I will never not exercise my right," she added.

Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said 150,000 police and military personnel had been deployed to provide security at polling centers.

Maduro had wanted to strengthen institutional control as Venezuelans choose 2,459 members for 335 city councils. The opposition until now controlled a quarter of those councils.

Felix Seijas, head of the Delphos polling firm, predicted that pro-government candidates would "capture the majority of the municipal chambers, with a historic level of voter abstention." Maduro's path appeared clear, after the main opposition parties were disqualified by the Electoral Council.

The governing Socialist Party urged people to vote.

Yet "Why vote if they've already won it all?" asked hairdresser Leidy Sivira, 30, a Caracas resident.