Venezuela Election Campaigning Kicks off

Caracas, Aug 25. -Campaigning for the September 26 congressional elections officially started on Wednesday at 6 a.m., and Venezuela''s political parties did not lose a second in activating their forces.

As announced, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) gave the green light at midnight from all over the country, as a prelude to demonstrations, caravans and marches that will fill the country's main streets and avenues with electoral propaganda in the coming days.

These measures are the beginning of a campaign starting a month before elections, but the socialists started theirs several weeks ago, so as not to lose ground in a race that both parties have termed as transcendental.

On Sunday, the PSUV finished swearing in its Bolivar 200 campaign machinery, structured from the national level to that of voting districts, with the goal of shaking up voters.

With the strategy of assigning one activist to every 10 people, the organization seeks to encourage voting, and to remind people of the social achievements of the last few years, under the socialist majority in Congress.

The opposition also mobilized, and while it did not take a main role in demonstrations, it tried to heat up the streets with two well-defined campaigns, one against the government's food programs and another one against security.

Although they did not venture to enter working-class areas as their rivals did, the right-wing parties, allied with the so-called Democratic Unity Table, made incursions into neighborhoods like Petare, where the opposition rules.

The opposition, brandishing a spectrum of colors, set themselves up in middle-class neighborhoods, above all in the states where they feel strong, like Miranda, Carabobo, Tachira and Zulia, where they are demanding changes for the country. (Prensa Latina)