Venezuelans exercise their right to vote in the presidential election

Our special envoy Yunus Soner updates us on the progress of the electoral process in Venezuela. teleSUR

Transcript

00:00We continue giving follow-up to the important election day being held in Venezuela, here

00:09in from the South, in Television English.

00:11Let's now go live to Caracas with our special envoy, Yunus Soner, for more details on how

00:16the election day is unfolding.

00:17Hello, Yunus, what can you tell us from your side?

00:21Hello, good morning from Petare, from Caracas.

00:29Petare is one of the biggest favelas here in Latin America, with 500,000 people, and

00:34the citizens of Petare are showing great interest for the presidential elections today.

00:40We have been here since 5 o'clock in the morning, there have been huge queues of citizens waiting

00:47for the election center to open, and the elections are continuing here.

00:52Behind me you see the citizens who are waiting to be called to enter the so-called voting

00:59tables, so this is a kind of additional queue so that people are not waiting outside, they

01:06are being seated because it's getting warm here.

01:09And here is where the voting actually takes place, inside this, as you see the armed forces

01:18are securing, are providing security in the plan, Republic plan, as always, this is a

01:24usual measure.

01:26And here we have the queue of the citizens waiting to vote inside this place.

01:34This is a parroquia, they say, here in Venezuela.

01:39This is an electoral circle that has more than 8,000 citizens registered as voters,

01:46so there will be a lot of voting, and until now we see a great, great interest, there

01:52is a high participation here, people have been queuing since 2 o'clock in the morning,

01:594 o'clock in the morning, to cast their votes in the presidential elections, and all is

02:05going very, very relaxed, we have seen people even dancing in the morning, hard to believe,

02:15but we have the footage of that, so people are very relaxed, they are casting their votes,

02:20they are sitting side by side, there is no conflict or dispute or nothing, everything

02:25goes its orderly way, there are also representatives of all political parties, as witnesses in

02:32the centre, who are checking that the process goes well, and there is no complaints here

02:38in Petare until now, and it does not seem to be occurring later in the day.

02:44So people are attending in huge numbers, we talked to some of them, several of them

02:50said that it is a right and a duty on constitutional level to attend the elections, that they consider

02:58this a crucial moment for the Venezuelan democracy, and that they are very happy to participate

03:05in the elections, they said, when we asked them why they were sitting there, waiting

03:13to enter the election centre since 2 o'clock in the morning.