CARACAS, Venezuela—On the final Sunday before Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election, a large crowd stands in front of the church in Plaza Bolivar, in the bustling central Caracas neighborhood of Chacao. Despite the religious nature of the event, or perhaps because of it, the crowd is chanting a repeated one-word refrain: “Freedom.”
Standing before them are Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the opposition’s standard-bearer in the election, and Maria Corina Machado, the primary-winning opposition candidate for whom Gonzalez stood in after the government banned her from running. Millions of Venezuelans have pinned their hopes on the leadership duo to rescue them from over a decade of authoritarian rule under President Nicolas Maduro. As she addresses the crowd, Machado emphasizes that this is more than an electoral fight. It is a spiritual battle.
When asked about her expectations for Sunday, Zorayda Hernandez, a 59-year-oldwoman forced to work multiple jobs to make ends meet,pauses for a moment. She takes a deep breath before softly saying, “I feel happiness and hope.” With hands clasped together, she raises them toward the sky in prayer. “He is the one to decide,” she says, tears welling in her eyes.