With Opposition Sitting Out, Venezuela’s Socialists Set to Gain Mayors

Venezuela’s ruling Socialist Party looked set to sweep Sunday’s nationwide mayoral polls, deepening opposition splits and consolidating President Nicolas Maduro’s position ahead of a likely 2018 re-election campaign.

Major opposition parties were boycotting the elections for 335 municipal mayors around the South American nation of 30 million people, in protest of a vote system they say is at the service of Maduro’s “dictatorship.”

But some small parties in the Democratic Unity coalition have dissented and run candidates, confusing opposition supporters already disillusioned at the failure to weaken Maduro in months of protests earlier this year that claimed 125 lives.

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