UK/SPAIN: Venezuelans vote in England and Spain

Venezuelans living in in the U.K. queued at the London based Venezuelan consulate on Sunday (December 3), to cast their vote for the Presidential elections. Crowds started to arrive at the embassy from 0900 GMT - an hour before polls officially opened waving flags and dressed in yellow, blue and red - the colours of the national flag. Views as to who should be running the country where as polarised as ever. "I voted for Manuel (Rosales) because of all the insecurity (in Venezuela), the education, because of all the corruption and I'm waiting for changes that will come with him (Rosales). I am fed up of all the robberies, I'm tired of not been able to walk in my country. I had to come here, I can't get a stable job, I used to work for Intesa PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela SA) and I had to come here. I had to give up my job and come here where it's cold because of the situation my country is in. I'm fed up and I would like a change and that's it, enough, I don't want communism I would like to have democracy which is what my country needs," said Ivan, a Venezuelan living in London. "I am going to vote for President (Hugo) Chavez, because, because I believe in his ideals, in his ideas, I think they are very good for the country and for the people. That's why I'm supporting him," said pro-Chavez voter Viviana. Around 1200 people have registered in London alone and embassy officials believe around 50,000 Venezuelan are expected to vote away from home, the highest number of expats to ever go to the polls. There were similar scenes at the polling station in the Spanish capital of Madrid where people queued outside the Venezuelan consulate. Some 8,800 Venezuelans residing in Spain have registered to vote in the elections; with around 2,300 in Madrid and the rest in Barcelona, Bilbao, Vigo and the Canary Islands. At 13.00 GMT a press officer in the Venezuelan consulate in Madrid said that there were queues of people waiting to vote and that no incidents had been reported. Anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez was favoured to win re-election on Sunday (December 3) as Venezuelan voters decided whether to hand the former soldier six more years to broaden his promised socialist revolution. A victory for Chavez, 52, would bolster his campaign for a left-wing alliance in Latin America to counter what he attacks as Washington's "imperialist" influence and further rile U.S. officials portraying him as an authoritarian menace. Most recent polls showed Chavez with a solid lead over Manuel Rosales, governor of the western oil state of Zulia, who has led the strongest opposition challenge in years to his rule in the OPEC heavyweight and top U.S. oil supplier. Seven years after Chavez took power, Venezuela is polarised with his poor power base applauding his spending oil income on social programs while critics brand him a would-be dictator copying the communism of his ally, Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Rosales, 53, has managed to unite the deeply fractured opposition by attacking Chavez's record tackling high crime and unemployment and promising to roll back policies he says are slowly edging Venezuela toward authoritarian rule. "I voted for Rosales because I believe that Venezuela needs to return to democracy, because we need the Venezuelan people to return to what it was, and because us in Venezuela, we don't want to have a socio-Communism which is what Chavez would like to implement and follow in the steps of Fidel Castro but Venezuela needs something much better than that," said Martha after voting in London.

ITN Source | December 4, 2006

Tags:. .poor. .further. .counter. .voters. .incidents