Lead­ers of Venezuela’s frac­tured op­po­si­tion are shak­ing vot­ers’ hands and promis­ing — yet again — that they will de­feat Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro at the bal­lot box.

Maduro is backed by the all-pow­er­ful Unit­ed So­cial­ist Par­ty of Venezuela, which has con­trolled the na­tion and its oil wealth for a quar­ter-cen­tu­ry. The par­ty was led for 15 years by Hugo Chávez and has been be­hind Maduro for a decade, all the while tilt­ing the elec­toral sys­tem in its fa­vor and us­ing gov­ern­ment ben­e­fits as in­cen­tives to vote for it.

De­spite the sky-high odds against them, op­po­si­tion lead­ers say that giv­ing up would be worse, so they’re hold­ing an Oct. 22 pri­ma­ry to de­cide who will take on Maduro next year. They are get­ting a luke­warm re­cep­tion from dispir­it­ed vot­ers who were told for years to boy­cott elec­tions.

In­ter­est­ed can­di­dates could of­fi­cial­ly en­ter the race start­ing Tues­day but many elec­tion ba­sics — such as who will vote, how and where — re­main un­de­ter­mined. Still, so far about 10 politi­cians think they have what it takes to face Maduro and the Unit­ed So­cial­ist Par­ty of Venezuela.

“All of us Venezue­lans who want to live bet­ter, who want to live in a democ­ra­cy, must do what is with­in our reach,” said Jesús María Casal, a con­sti­tu­tion­al at­tor­ney who heads the body over­see­ing the pri­ma­ry.

The list of as­pir­ing can­di­dates in­cludes Hen­rique Capriles, a two-time pres­i­den­tial can­di­date and for­mer gov­er­nor, and Maria Co­ri­na Macha­do, a for­mer Na­tion­al As­sem­bly mem­ber. Fred­dy Su­per­lano, a one­time gu­ber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date, be­came his par­ty’s choice af­ter Juan Guaidó, the for­mer self-pro­claimed act­ing pres­i­dent of Venezuela, left the coun­try in late April.

Vot­ers are be­ing suf­fo­cat­ed by a pro­tract­ed cri­sis that has pushed more than 7 mil­lion peo­ple to mi­grate and has made food and oth­er ne­ces­si­ties un­af­ford­able for those who re­main.

Since Hugo Chávez was elect­ed pres­i­dent in 1998, ush­er­ing in a move­ment that he said cham­pi­oned the work­ing class, Venezue­lans have par­tic­i­pat­ed in 17 elec­tions, in­clud­ing pres­i­den­tial, leg­isla­tive, gu­ber­na­to­r­i­al and mu­nic­i­pal con­tests.

The elec­tions have been marked by the use of free food, home ap­pli­ances and oth­er goods as po­lit­i­cal tools. Pro-gov­ern­ment can­di­dates have had pre­ferred ac­cess to sub­si­dized gaso­line, and fa­vor­able cov­er­age on state tele­vi­sion for the rul­ing par­ty.

The elec­tions have al­so fea­tured so-called red check­points — named af­ter the col­or that the rul­ing par­ty coopt­ed more than two decades ago. Check­points near polling sites are typ­i­cal­ly run by rul­ing-par­ty al­lies who ask peo­ple to see the gov­ern­ment-is­sued cards need­ed to re­ceive food and oth­er as­sis­tance.

The lack of fair elec­toral con­di­tions prompt­ed some op­po­si­tion lead­ers to en­cour­age boy­cotts over the past two decades. But the strat­e­gy failed, and the var­i­ous par­ties and op­po­si­tion fac­tions have been work­ing for months to reach agree­ments to hold the first pri­ma­ry since 2012.

Guaidó, who did not vote in the 2021 re­gion­al elec­tions, this year en­cour­aged Venezue­lans liv­ing abroad to send friends mon­ey so that they could pay for trips to vot­er-reg­is­tra­tion of­fices.

“Your fam­i­ly and friends in Venezuela need your help to par­tic­i­pate in the pri­ma­ry,” a video tweet­ed by Guaidó in March ex­plains. “Sup­port them with the trav­el ex­pens­es.”

Casal’s group has asked the coun­try’s elec­toral au­thor­i­ties to up­date vot­ing rolls and ease the vot­er reg­is­tra­tion process.

Op­po­si­tion par­ties, in­ter­est­ed can­di­dates, long­stand­ing lead­ers and pri­ma­ry or­ga­niz­ers are yet to agree on whether to use gov­ern­ment-owned elec­tron­ic vot­ing ma­chines dur­ing the Oc­to­ber con­test. Whether polling cen­ters will be set up at schools across the coun­try is al­so un­de­ter­mined.

Dis­agree­ments among the op­po­si­tion ex­tend to whether Venezue­lans liv­ing abroad who are of vot­ing age should vote in the pri­ma­ry.

Venezuela’s law con­tem­plates ab­sen­tee vot­ing by al­low­ing cit­i­zens to cast a bal­lot at con­sulates. But in­ter­est­ed vot­ers must be prop­er­ly reg­is­tered with their for­eign ad­dress, and can­not be in that coun­try il­le­gal­ly or seek­ing refugee or asy­lum sta­tus.

Rul­ing par­ty leader Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo has in­sist­ed that the op­po­si­tion will not man­age to hold a pri­ma­ry. If he is wrong, then the op­po­si­tion al­so must fig­ure out how to han­dle a pri­ma­ry win by a can­di­date whom au­thor­i­ties have pre­vi­ous­ly banned from run­ning for of­fice. Su­per­lano and Capriles are un­der such bans, which many con­sid­er part of the gov­ern­ment’s an­ti-dis­sent tac­tics.

Su­per­lano was a can­di­date for gov­er­nor of Bari­nas, where Chávez was born, in 2021. As elec­tion re­sults showed him win­ning, Venezuela’s high court dis­qual­i­fied him. His wife, who was cho­sen as his suc­ces­sor, was al­so deemed in­el­i­gi­ble to run. So was her sub­sti­tute.

Guaidó, who is al­so banned from elec­toral ac­tiv­i­ties, re­lo­cat­ed to Mi­a­mi in April, cit­ing in­creas­ing safe­ty threats to him­self and his fam­i­ly. Last week, Capriles twice ac­cused rul­ing-par­ty loy­al­ists of dis­turb­ing cam­paign events, in­clud­ing one on Fri­day in which women pushed and hit him sev­er­al times, an in­ci­dent cap­tured in a video that Capriles post­ed on Twit­ter.

Capriles won the op­po­si­tion’s last pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry and ran against Chávez in Oc­to­ber 2012. Six months lat­er, he faced Maduro, who had be­come Venezuela’s in­ter­im pres­i­dent when Chávez died.

“What is go­ing to hap­pen? I don’t know what will hap­pen,” Capriles told re­porters about the bans. “What I be­lieve is that I can­not dis­bar my­self nor am I go­ing to ask the gov­ern­ment for per­mis­sion (to see) if I can run or not.”

CARA­CAS, Venezuela (AP) —