CARACAS/BARQUISIMETO, Venezuela--Venezuela's leftist leader, Nicolas Maduro, looked set to win re-election on Sunday in what looked to be a poorly attended vote condemned by foes as the "coronation" of a dictator and likely to bring new foreign sanctions.
Despite his unpopularity over the OPEC member's economic meltdown, the 55-year-old former bus driver was benefiting from a boycott by the mainstream opposition, a ban on his two most popular rivals, and state institutions in loyalists' hands.
The vote could trigger additional sanctions from the United States and more censure from the European Union and Latin America. The Trump administration said it would not recognize the "sham" election and was considering oil sanctions.
Maduro, the self-described "son" of former President Hugo Chavez, says he is battling an "imperialist" plot to crush socialism and take over Venezuela's oil. Opponents say he has destroyed a once-wealthy economy and ruthlessly crushed dissent.
Maduro's main challenger is a former state governor, Henri Falcon, who predicted an upset because of fury among Venezuela's 30 million people at their increased poverty. Although some opinion polls have shown Falcon ahead, analysts say his chances are thin, given widespread abstention, the vote-winning power of state handouts and Maduro's allies on the election board.
In polling stations visited by Reuters reporters, from wealthy east Caracas to the Andean mountains near Colombia, attendance appeared far lower than at the last presidential election in 2013 when there was an 80 percent turnout. An opposition umbrella movement called the Broad Front, which was boycotting the vote, said on Sunday evening that turnout had been under 30 percent, according to its monitors across the nation, in what it termed an "electoral farce."
There were lines, however, outside some polling stations in poorer government strongholds, where the majority of voters interviewed said they were backing Maduro. "I'm hungry and don't have a job, but I'm sticking to Maduro," said Carlos Rincones, 49, in the once-thriving industrial city of Valencia, accusing right-wing business owners of purposefully hiding food and hiking prices.
The government has set up so-called red point zones near polling stations so Venezuelans can scan their state-issued "fatherland cards" used to receive benefits including food boxes and money transfers. Maduro has promised a "prize" to those who do so. Critics say that is a way of scaring impoverished Venezuelans into supporting his government.
Falcon's team said it received about 900 complaints about the "red points." Several state workers also told Reuters they were pressured to vote, while pro-government activists hovered around some polling stations, saying they were assisting voters.
Further hurting Falcon's chances by splitting the anti-Maduro vote was a third candidate, evangelical pastor Javier Bertucci, who has picked up a large following, partly because of free soup handouts.
Many Venezuelans are disillusioned and angry over the election: They criticize Maduro for economic hardships and the opposition for its dysfunctional splits.
Reeling from a fifth year of recession, falling oil production and U.S. sanctions, Venezuela is seeing growing levels of malnutrition and hyperinflation, and mass emigration. "I think this constant aggression from the government of the Ku Klux Klan is losing credibility," Maduro said on Sunday, blaming U.S. President Donald Trump for Venezuela's mess.
