CARACAS, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Both the government and the opposition in Venezuela are gearing up for Sunday's regional elections, with the aim of changing the country's political landscape, political analyst Eduardo Diaz has said.
On Sunday, over 18 million Venezuelans are eligible to vote for 197 candidates running for the country's 23 governor posts.
"In a different scenario, Chavism (the political ideology of former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez) has clear intentions of taking over the political map with a call to non-violence and the resolution of conflicts through votes," Diaz told Xinhua in a recent interview.
Four years ago, the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won 20 of the 23 governorships but today, the economic reality is different.
With the country mired in an ongoing political and economic crisis, as well as spiralling inflation, the government of President Nicolas Maduro also weathered four months of intense protests by the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD).
Despite this dissatisfaction with the government, Diaz hinted that the MUD sympathizers would show an "abstentionist" trend.
"The great objective of the opposition is to defeat abstentionism after the disappointment of its militants in the leaders, who had planned the exit of the Maduro government by force," he said.
The elections will be closely watched to see whether the PSUV maintains the broad appeal that was evident in the July 30 elections for the National Constituent Assembly (ANC), which drew more than 8 million voters, or whether continued economic woes, aggravated by U.S. sanctions, have eroded its support.
"With the participation of 45 percent of the electorate, the official party could win over half of the 23 governorships," the analyst predicted.
However, Diaz admitted that certain important governorships could fall into the hands of the opposition, especially in some important industrial production centers.
"The political map will lead the opposition toward a new way of doing politics and not a blank check for violence," he added.
Diaz said that all the winning governors would have to swear loyalty to the National Constituent Assembly (ANC), which the MUD has ruled out.
The regional elections were first postponed due to the country's economic crisis and political conflicts, then scheduled for Dec. 10, until the newly-elected ANC agreed to move up the vote to Oct. 15.
"There is no space for radicals and, after the results and the oath to the ANC, will come the tacit recognition of (Maduro) ... who ordered the moving of the elections to this month of October, instead of December," he said.
