Opposition boycotts Venezuela's 'power-grab' election
The unpopular leader Nicolas Maduro, who has presided over a collapsing economy, is attempting to tighten his grip on power.
Sunday 30 July 2017 16:55, UK
Streets in Venezuela have been largely deserted with just a trickle of people heading to vote in widely criticised elections.
Opposition parties are boycotting the Constituency Assembly election, claiming President Nicolas Maduro will use its result to crush dissenters and tighten his grip on power.
The president cast his ballot in the capital Caracas.
If successful, President Maduro will essentially govern a one-party state, controlling the powerful 545-member body charged with re-writing the Venezuelan constitution.
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The vote marks the peak of four months of protests that have seen 110 people killed in clashes with riot police.
Opposition to President Maduro has steadily grown beyond its roots in the middle classes to include significant support from the slums in Caracas.
"This is illegal," Juan Vieda, a man staffing a barricade in the capital, told Sky News.
"They want to force us. They want to force this constitution on us and we don't want it. This will be bad and this will be bad for them."
President Maduro is .
State employees, who depend on their free housing and food subsidies, have been bombarded with texts and calls telling them to vote or risk losing their lifelines.
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Opponents hope a tiny turnout will expose the illegitimacy of the process.
But the government controls the election returns and there will be no independent oversight.
President Maduro insists the new assembly is the only way to haul Venezuela out of its economic and political crisis, but has not explained how a new constitution would do so.
"We have a card to play: a card that will win this game. And that card is the National Constituent Assembly," he said on Friday.