The head of the electoral council CNE highlights the peaceful climate under which the elections are taking place. Honduras official praises the legislative elections.

Polls opened early Sunday in Venezuela’s National Assembly election, with people lining up at polling stations well before the start of voting at 6 a.m. local time. Just under 100,000 officials presided over polling stations nationwide, including 130 international electoral monitors.

As many as 19 million registered voters are expected to cast ballots in the election, which has been predicted to be one of the tightest in years. Hours after the polls opened, one of the deans of Venezuela’s CNE electoral council, Socorro Hernandez, highlighted the massive participation of voters in the legislative elections, which is the 20th democratic process in the last 17 years. Hernandez also emphasized that the voting in over 14,500 polling stations with 40,000 voting booths are being carried out in a peaceful atmosphere. The electoral official said the voting is taking place in a highly fluid manner, with most voters taking about 90 seconds to complete the full process.

The official also said there has been a few logistical issues which have been taken care of in a timely manner.

She also highlighted there were no irregularities or any other complains of any sort. Honduran historian and former Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas, who is in Venezuela as an electoral monitor, praised the peaceful process taking place throughout the Latin American country, as well as noting the “peaceful wil and sovereign response of the people while casting their vote.” Rodas also said that the peaceful electoral process in Venezuela highly contrasts with the “deceitful and perverted” information being posted by mainstream international media.

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address:

“http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Polls-Open-in-Venezuelan-National-Assembly-Elections-20151203-0047.html”.