‘A new start’: Venezuelans in Miami hopeful as they await election results from afar

Draped in a Venezuelan flag, Amaga Garcia occasionally blared a yellow, blue and red horn as a crowd of more than 1,000 chanted for freedom.

Garcia, 60, moved from Caracas to the Little Havana neighborhood six years ago. She said the country’s troubled economy pushed her to leave so that she could help support her mother and two sons.

Venezuela is a grand and blessed nation that had previously welcomed people from around the world. It now has a chance to be free, she said, tears swelling in her eyes.

“I’m here fighting for my family and for a better country,” Garcia said. “My heart feels tight.. because I know Venezuela will move forward.”

Garcia, dressed in a black shirt with references to popular Venezuelan culture, was in the sea of people who congregated at Jose Marti Park in Little Havana Sunday evening as they awaited the results of the country’s presidential election, which could end close to 25 years of socialist rule in Venezuela.

READ MORE: Amid overwhelming desire for change, Venezuelans turn out to vote for president Sunday

While official results aren’t expected to be announced until late Sunday or early Monday, exit polls showed that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez was resoundingly ahead of President Nicolás Maduro. González, 74, is a former Venezuelan diplomat who was virtually unknown in the country until he was suddenly endorsed by opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who won the opposition’s primary with more than 92% of the vote before her candidacy was banned by the regime.

“It will fall. The government will fall,” the packed crowd chanted in Spanish as several people waved Venezuelan flags.

‘We will be free’

Coromoto Marcano, 60, made the drive from Orlando on Saturday to celebrate with South Florida’s Venezuelan community. She migrated to Florida three years ago from her home state of Bolívar.

Marcano said she fled because the government tried to kidnap her and her family for her involvement in politics. But she hasn’t stopped fighting for the Venezuelan cause — despite having to leave her career as an attorney and her two sons and five grandchildren behind.

“Finally, people [in the government] can’t do harm,” she said. “We’re closer to victory. We will be free after so many years.”

Maria Lopez, 52, fought back tears as she spoke about her native Venezuela. She said she left three years ago with her two children and settled in Little Havana. Her children, she said, have never witnessed Venezuela as the prosperous country it was when she was young.

“I’m here with the hope and faith that we will get rid of a dictator,” Lopez said. “I want my children to return and live the way I did until I was 25.”

Yearning for the future

Donning the Venezuelan flag, Andrea Maldonado, 32, said she made the difficult decision to move to Colombia seven years ago after she was threatened and harassed by the government. She has been living in Miami for three years with her parents and 11-year-old daughter.

“I’m praying to God that it’s going to be a new start for Venezuela,” Maldonado said. “It’s freedom we want for Venezuela, for our children return and get to know our land.”

She said she spent the day thinking about her family members still back at home.

“I’m hoping that the results of the election will be calm, that there won’t be a bloodbath,” she said. “I’m worried about that because the dictator said what they can’t do with votes, they will do with blood.”

For Luis Geraldo Morena, the election is a fight for the future of the country. That’s why he, his wife and his 13-year-old son turned out at the park on Sunday.

The 43-year-old primary school teacher was driven out of Táchira three years ago by the economic issues and lack of opportunity plaguing the country.

“We yearn for democracy and liberty,” Morena said.

No voting allowed in U.S.

Dozens of Venezuelans gathered Sunday morning at 110 Brickell Avenue, where the Venezuelan consulate in Miami was originally located, to protest the inability of Venezuelans in the U.S. to vote in the election.

Adelys Ferro, the executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, expressed her frustration of not being able to vote. However, she noted that Venezuelan society is taking the pain of family separation to the ballot box.

“Family separation is making Venezuelans vote massively today so that we can celebrate Christmas together again,” Ferro said.

Helena Villalonga, founder of nonprofit organization Amevex, said voting is a right guaranteed by the Venezuelan Constitution — even if the citizen lives outside the South American country.

It’s no coincidence, she said, that Maduro’s government didn’t allow the Venezuela diaspora in the U.S. to vote.

“Even though we don’t have an embassy, we had consulates that could have been enabled for Venezuelans to vote if the National Electoral Council had opened and sent the necessary materials to the United States,” she said.

The regime, Villalonga said, “simply did not want to because they knew we would defeat them, as all our brothers and sisters will defeat them today in the polling stations in our country and worldwide.”