Campaigning closed on Thursday for Venezuela's regional election with opposition parties - returning to the polls for the first time in four years - appealing to voters to punish the ruling Socialists for hyper-inflation and a deep recession.
Members of the 2021 EU Electoral Observation Mission in Venezuela meets with members of Fuerza Vecinal party, ahead of Sunday's election for local councils, mayors and governors in Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela November 17, 2021.
Should the opposition lose the 4 state governorships it won in 2017 - out of 23 states - it would lack a powerbase to launch a campaign for presidential elections, due in 2024. Rosales, a 68-year-old lawyer who served as governor of Zulia between 2000 and 2008, is seen by pollsters as one of the opposition candidates most likely to win a governorship. Polls predict the opposition could also win in the border state of Tachira, to the south.
The vote is a test of the impartiality of Venezuela's electoral commission, which in May included two opponents among its top five directors, making it the most balanced board in 17 years, its members have said.
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