CARACAS: Polls opened Sunday in legislative elections set to tighten Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's grip on power and weaken his US-backed rival, Juan Guaido, who is leading a boycott of the polls he calls a fraud. Victory will give Maduro's ruling Socialist Party control of an expanded 227-seat National Assembly - the only institution not in its hands.

"The time has come to vote for peace, for the country, for the future!" Maduro said in a message to supporters on the Telegram messaging application, shortly before voting began at 6.30 am local time (1030 GMT). Initial turnout was low however, with many polling stations in Caracas either empty or with few voters. "I have faith that everything will be fine," said Fany Molina as she voted in a school in the center of the capital.

"Those who abstain are wrong because how can you let others decide for you? You have to go out and vote!" the 70-year-old said. The election, contested by about 14,000 candidates from more than 100 parties, comes with the country in a deep political and economic crisis - suffocated by runaway inflation, paralyzed in endless queues for petrol, lacking water and gas supplies, and afflicted by sudden power cuts.

Since November 2019, inflation has reached 4,000 percent. Venezuela has been hard-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, and voters were obliged to wear masks inside polling stations, where the floors bore markings to ensure distancing was maintained. "They are maintaining the biosecurity system allowed by the WHO and it is also very fast," said voter Clemente Martinez, a 53-year-old artist.

The vote comes five years after the opposition won control of the National Assembly by a landslide. Maduro, a former bus driver who became president on the death of his mentor Hugo Chavez in 2013, was re-elected in 2018 in fraud-tainted polls - also boycotted by opposition parties - a victory which much of the international community branded illegitimate.

The United States, the European Union and many Latin American countries have long blamed Venezuela's crippling economic crisis on Maduro's repression and misrule. Instead, they backed Guaido when the National Assembly speaker proclaimed himself interim president in January of last year. Guaido, 37, called on voters to stay at home on grounds that "free and fair" conditions for holding elections do not exist.