CARACAS – Lines were short at polling places across Venezuela during parliamentary elections held on Sunday, where opposition leaders called on a populace frustrated by years of economic crisis to boycott a vote they deemed a fraud by President Nicolas Maduro.
Opposition leader Juan Guaido, head of the current congress, said Venezuelans should skip the vote and participate in a Dec. 12 consultation that will ask citizens if they reject Sunday’s vote and whether they want a change of government.
Maduro blames the country’s woes on the opposition, which he says has used its control of congress and its alliance with the United States to sabotage the economy.
“We have held on for five years,” Maduro said in a state television address. “What is the worst that the National Assembly has done to the country? It was treason, at having requested sanctions against the economy and the people, which has brought us into this painful situation.”(Reuters)
