(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Venezuelans yesterday voted in mayoral races that the ruling Socialist Party is likely to win, deepening opposition splits and consolidating President Nicolas Maduro's position ahead of a likely 2018 reelection campaign.
Major opposition parties are boycotting the elections for 335 municipal mayors around the South American nation of 30mn people, protesting a system they say serves Maduro's 'dictatorship.
But some small parties in the Democratic Unity coalition have dissented and run candidates, confusing opposition supporters already disillusioned at the failure to weaken Maduro in months of protests that claimed 125 lives earlier this year.
'This government has us under a dictatorship, and we have to respond to that with votes, not with abstention, said Jose Sifontes, 57, who works at state-owned steel mill Sidor.
After surprise wins in October gubernatorial elections, the socialists hope to increase their current share of roughly 70% of mayorships.
The socialists also hope to win a rerun of the October gubernatorial election in western Zulia state.
Opposition leader Juan Pablo Guanipa won that governorship in October, but the election was annulled and he was barred from holding office after he refused to swear allegiance to a pro-Maduro legislative superbody.
Former Zulia governor Manuel Rosales is running on the opposition ticket, but Guanipa supporters and other sectors of the opposition boycotting yesterday's vote have called him a 'traitor.
Yon Goicoechea, an opposition activist running for mayor in the wealthy Caracas suburb of El Hatillo, said it was self-destructive for larger anti-Maduro parties to abstain and hand political space to the Socialist Party.
'There's reticence to participate because the national election board doesn't offer guarantees or impartiality, said Goicoechea, who is just out of jail for alleged coup-plotting. 'But the solution cannot be giving up the right to vote...The abstentionists will regret it within two weeks.
Maduro's approval ratings have fallen by half since he was elected in 2013 following the death of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, his mentor and predecessor.
Venezuela under Maduro's rule has witnessed one of the most profound economic meltdowns in Latin American history, and he has been accused by countries around the world of creating a dictatorship.
Still, he is enjoying a political upturn after the October gubernatorial vote.
He is expected to be the socialists' candidate in the 2018 presidential election and still maintains support among party loyalists like retiree Jose Flores, 71.
'I'm voting for democracy; it's a way of showing other countries that there's no dictatorship here, Flores said outside a voting centre on the poor west side of Caracas. 'On the contrary, what we have is peace and democracy.
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