Desirous to cowl up the stains of his years in energy, Maduro has adopted new marketing campaign methods to woo voters.
She joined the video platform TikTok in 2020 and has since amassed over 2.2 million followers. On Instagram reside streams, she reveals her rallies, the place she has sung, danced and prayed along with her followers.
Watching movies on his cellphone, mototaxi driver Alfred Rajoy talks animatedly about attending one of many latest demonstrations.
He advised Al Jazeera he was proud to be one of many bikers who approached the president.
Rajoy’s windbreaker bears witness to his devotion to the Chavista motion: the faces of Maduro and Chavez are printed on the entrance, one on both facet of the zipper.
However he acknowledges that Maduro’s authorities has confronted criticism for corruption and its human rights document.
“It’s no secret that we’ve had failures right here, excessive failures. There’s some discontent in our communities, all through the nation. Some folks near Nicolás Maduro have acted badly,” Rajoy stated.
He additionally expressed some discontent with authorities actions designed to dismantle and discourage the opposition. Dozens of opposition members have been detained within the run-up to Sunday’s election, and eating places and motels that hosted Gonzalez, the rival presidential candidate, have been closed.
However some supporters dismiss such tales as disinformation or, worse, fabrications by the opposition and overseas brokers.
Guillermo Ávila, 24, a Maduro supporter, stated he believes a lot of the criticism he sees on-line is the product of opposition manipulation.
“They painting our authorities as a totalitarian and dictatorial authorities, however in actuality it’s a participatory and essential authorities,” Ávila stated. “It presents an area for everybody. We’re seeing the nation rising economically, the place persons are seen completely happy within the streets.”
However for Gunson, Maduro’s narrative as a “man of the folks” doesn’t maintain up in opposition to his historical past of alleged abuses.
“Maduro presents himself as a employee, as a result of he didn’t go to college and he was a bus driver,” Gunson stated. “However it is a authorities that jails union leaders for protesting. These are individuals who have gotten wealthy by exploiting the poor and who declare to be socialists. The contradiction is of their center identify.”
Because of Maduro’s repute for repressing dissent, many opposition voters are involved that the president and his supporters won’t respect a Gonzalez victory.
From his lounge sofa, Bermúdez watches Maduro’s campaigns on his small tv. For him, a defeat for Maduro is inconceivable. The prospect even makes him cry: “Dropping the elections would imply shedding the nation, destroying Venezuela.”
However different Maduro supporters are much less fatalistic in regards to the prospect of ending almost 25 years of socialist rule.
“This can be a democracy,” Rajoy stated. “An important factor is that folks vote and that the result’s revered.”
Each males are eagerly awaiting the outcomes of Election Day, which, not coincidentally, falls on the late Chavez’s birthday.
