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Groton Daily Independent
Monday, July 31, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 031 ~ 23 of 42
it can mobilize in both electoral and non-electoral scenarios,” the report concluded.
The same exit poll also noted that Venezuela has an estimated 2.6 million government employees, “suggesting that a large fraction of the votes could have not been voluntary.”
A list of nations including Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Spain, Britain and the United States said they would not recognize Sunday’s vote. The Trump administra- tion again promised “strong and swift actions” against Venezuelan of cials, including the 545 participants in the constitutional assembly, many of them low-ranking party members. The U.S. did not say whether it would sanc- tion Venezuelan oil imports, a mea- sure with the potential to destabilize Maduro’s government and deepen the country’s humanitarian crisis.
Maduro said he had received con- gratulations from the governments of Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua, among others.
In this photo released by Mira ores Press Of ce, Ven- ezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro shows his ballot after casting a vote for a constitutional assembly in Caracas, Venezuela on Sunday, July 30, 2017. Maduro asked for global acceptance on Sunday as he cast an unusual pre- dawn vote for an all-powerful constitutional assembly that his opponents fear he’ll use to replace Venezuelan democracy with a single-party authoritarian system. (Mira- ores Press Of ce via AP)
Across this capital of more than 2
million people, dozens of polling places
were virtually empty Sunday, including many that in previous elections saw hours-long lines of thousands voting to keep the government in power over the last two decades.
At the Poliedro sports and cultural complex in western Caracas, several thousand people waited about two hours to vote, many drawn from opposition-dominated neighborhoods where polling places were closed. But at least three dozen other sites visited by The Associated Press had no more than a few hun- dred voters at any one time, with many virtually empty.
Opposition leaders had called for a boycott of the vote, declaring it rigged for the ruling party, and by late afternoon they were declaring the apparent low turnout to be a resounding victory. Ahead of the vote, the opposition organized a series of work stoppages as well as a July 16 protest vote that it said drew more than 7.5 million symbolic votes against the constitutional assembly.
“It’s very clear to us that the government has suffered a defeat today,” said Julio Borges, president of the opposition-controlled but largely powerless National Assembly. “This vote brings us closer to the government leaving power.”
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles urged Venezuelans to protest again Monday.
Maduro called the vote for a constitutional assembly in May after a month of protests against his gov- ernment, which has overseen Venezuela’s descent into a devastating crisis during its four years in power. Thanks to plunging oil prices and widespread corruption and mismanagement, Venezuela’s in ation and homicide rates are among the world’s highest, and widespread shortages of food and medicine have citi- zens dying of preventable illnesses and rooting through trash to feed themselves.
The winners among the 5,500 ruling-party candidates running for 545 seats in the constituent assembly