Hello, this is News Hour on the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatton coming to you live from London.

We begin with the vote in Venezuela, the most tensely awaited presidential election

in more than a decade.

Opposition supporters believe they have a real chance to oust the incumbent leader

Nicholas Maduro.

He's been in power for 11 years.

During that time, his ruling party has taken over key institutions

from the Supreme Court to the National Electoral Council, the body responsible for

organizing elections. During Maduro's time, Venezuela has also been hit by crippling

inflation and mass emigration. In the past decade almost 8 million of its citizens

have left the country in hopes of finding a better future elsewhere. The

opposition boycotted the last election in 2020 but they've decided it's better to take part now.

But one key name, that's not on the ballot, the country's most popular opposition politician

Maria Corina Machado. She received

overwhelming support in the opposition primaries but was barred from running

over alleged fraud which she has denied. She's now thrown her weight behind another candidate

at Mundo Gonzalez and the opposition is united against Mr Maduro.

Argentinian journalist Delsio Choccolan is in Caracas. I asked her what she'd been seeing today.

This is beautiful day in Caracas. It's sunny, people are out, the polls opened 6 a.m. in the morning,

some people were queuing even before 6 a.m. in the morning some people were queuing even before 6 a.m. because of the

excitement to go vote. I went to several centuries. I saw people just waiting in line peacefully quietly.

They all told me that the voting system was working fine,

...