In a vote to select 2,459 members for 335 of Venezuela's city councils, the government of Nicolas Maduro won 90 percent of the posts on Sunday — although only around 27 percent of Venezuelans participated in the election.



The local elections, held amid widespread apathy and an opposition boycott, came a month before Maduro begins his second six-year term. He won re-election in May, but his legitimacy has been put into question by political opponents, the European Union, the United States and most of Latin America.



Sunday's vote was the most recent in a series of elections convened by the governing Constituent Assembly. The controversial legislative body, which stripped Venezuela's opposition-led legislature of its authority, was created in 2017 in the midst of protests and political unrest that left 125 people dead.

Read more: Maduro and Putin: United by oil, isolation

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Iconic image Each day 30,000 to 40,000 people cross the 315-meter-long (1,000-foot-long) Simon Bolivar bridge (pictured) between Venezuela and Colombia. Since September 2015 some 20 million Venezuelans have crossed into the neighboring Colombian province of Norte de Santander, says its governor William Villamizar. At the same time, he adds, 17 million individuals have been registered as entering Venezuela.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Shopping over the border Most Venezuelans come to Colombia to stock up on basic food stuff and medicine. It is cheaper there than in their own country, where inflation has spiraled out of control and made the Bolivar, Venezuela's currency, nearly worthless. Some 3 million citizens are thought to have permanently migrated to Colombia.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Refugiados welcome? Colombians initially welcomed fleeing Venezuelans with open arms, just like Germans welcomed refugees in summer 2015. But now, experts say, the mood has shifted. Many have begun demanding the government provide less financial support to refugees and instead invest more in helping ordinary Colombians. However, aid for refugees is still provided in reception centers (above).

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Heading south According to official figures, approximately 1 million Venezuelan nationals currently reside in Colombia. Given that a total of 3 million Venezuelans crossed into Colombia, about 2 million must have traveled onward. In the first half of 2018 alone, over 500,000 of them migrated to Colombia's southern neighbor Ecuador.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Stopover in Ecuador Ecuadorian authorities estimate that only 20 percent of Venezuelan nationals who arrived in the country in 2018 permanently settled there, like this family living in a makeshift camp near the capital, Quito. Most Venezuelans presumably intend to keep on traveling southward and reach either Peru, Chile or Argentina.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Hitting the brakes After several days when some 5,000 Venezuelans wanted to cross from Colombia into Ecuador, Quito began demanding that Venezuelan nationals show valid passports to emigrate, rather than just an ID as was previously needed. This new regulation applies to adults. For children, proof of paternity and parental passports is enough to let them cross the border.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Chain reaction After Ecuador Peru followed suit, announcing it would implement the same regulation in the near future. Peruvian Interior Minister Mauro Medina said that about 80 percent of Venezuelan refugees arrive with valid passports, but many Venezuelan NGOs warn that passports have now become luxury items in the crisis-stricken country, requiring large sums of cash or high-level contacts to acquire one.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Tension in the air More than 100,000 Venezuelans have migrated to Brazil since 2016, most of them to the country's north. From there, roughly half them travel onward to Ecuador and Peru. The situation in northern Brazil is tense: The country's government has said it will redistribute Venezuelan immigrants to other regions. Critics have accused the government authorities of failing to support Brazil's border region.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Attacks and confrontations Last weekend, local residents in the Brazilian border town of Pacaraima attacked makeshift camps housing Venezuelan refugees. They set their dwellings on fire and drove hundreds back across the border. Media reports say Brazilian police did nothing to stop the mob violence. The attack was said to be triggered by the robbery of a Brazilian businessman — a crime allegedly committed by refugees. Author: Jan D. Walter



Voter apathy

As Maduro appeared on state television on Sunday to cast his vote in Caracas, he urged Venezuelans to vote to ensure they could "continue living in democracy." The embattled president pointed to the nine elections that have been held during his presidency as a testament of its democratic character.

"Despite the conspiracies that come from the White House to divide our country, we have a strong democracy," Maduro said. The Venezuelan president has maintained that he is a victim of a US-led plot to remove him from office, and has blamed the current economic crisis on sanctions imposed by Washington.

After four opposition parties refused to participate in the presidential election in May, in an attempt to protest the lack of fairness within the process, the Venezuelan National Electoral Council banned them from this Sunday's election.

In Caracas and other cities across the country, numerous polling stations were reportedly near empty, with few people in line to cast their vote.

Venezuela is currently living through its fifth year of a recession that has shrunk the size of the economy by half and forced 3 million people to leave the country to escape hyperinflation and rampant crime.

jcg/cmk (EFE, AFP, AP, dpa)

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