Venezuelans voted for state governors and district mayors on Sunday in an election expected to consolidate President Hugo Chavez's control two months after he won a referendum on his rule. Still bruised by the referendum defeat, opposition parties are struggling against voter apathy and splits among their candidates as they compete for more than 600 governorships and state assembly and municipal offices in the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.
Abstention is traditionally around 40 percent in regional elections and early turnout in Caracas on Sunday was much lower than in the August 15 recall vote against Chavez, a left-wing former army officer who has promised to combat poverty.
Key battles include district mayor offices in the capital and strategic states of Miranda, Carabobo and oil-rich Zulia where much of the nation's petroleum industry is based. All three of those states are under opposition control.
"You can't just give the space away... you have to vote. This is to defend what I have here, to defend my governor and my mayor," said Juan Mendoza, 35, an attorney who voted in an opposition stronghold in eastern Caracas.
Chavez, a populist first elected in 1998, has promised to blanket the country in red - the colour of his Fifth Republic Movement political party - as he seeks to capitalise on the referendum, which endorsed his presidency through 2007.
The firebrand nationalist has vowed to strengthen his social, land and education reforms for the poor in Venezuela after ousting opposition governors and mayors whom he accuses of backing a brief 2002 coup against him.
The recall vote in August came after three years of political conflict between Chavez and foes who say he is an autocrat copying Cuban communism. The referendum was endorsed by international observers, but the opposition says it was a fraud engineered by pro-Chavez election officials.