Venezuelan Elections 2016: Democracy vs Socialism, Which One Will Triumph?

As the Venezuelan legislative election is nearly approaching, the acclamation is now surrounded by controversies as citizens are torn between fighting for democracy or socialism. The poll will take place on Dec. 6 and 167 seats will be put to the test of making up the legislative body.

According to ThinkProgress, the people of Venezuela are now divided because of the legislative elections. In fact, they have flooded the streets and are filling the walls of the capital with writings.

About 20 million nationals will cast their votes to determine the fate of the National Assembly, which has been source of much tension. The dominance of current President, Nicolas Maduro, and his future plans for the country will come to an end if Socialist Party loses. 

"If we lose these elections, we lose everything. We'll only have a paper president, because where does everything really get decided? In the National Assembly," Socialist Party volunteer Zulay Castillo told ThinkProgress.

In fact, she boasted that the 53-year-old head of state gave him and many others free apartments built by the former administration of President Hugo Chavez. She even called it -- in her own words -- "a dignified home that our commander gave me" and made it an example of what the Socialist Party can do for their people.

TheHill noted that the Venezuelan election process has been plagued with a lot of controversies. Some critics' say that the Northern Coast of South America doesn't have the right procedure of free and fair elections.

Hence, they say that the decency of the country's election depends on its "constitutional government." In 1999, the Venezuela Constitution was formalized with four branches of government, with executive, legislative and judicial branches, just like the United States.

To complete the four, the electoral branch, which was also known as the National Electoral Council (CNE), was solely responsible for fair elections, that are of importance to every citizen of Venezuela.

Unfortunately, Foreign Policy reported Venezuela was the first Latin American country that ended up jailing leaders of the adversary parties on election day. In fact, four were put into prison, including the former Venezuelan politician, Leopoldo Lopez, and 71 more political prisoners.

"Venezuela's current regime has always gone to great lengths to neutralize my engagement in politics, along with the engagement of so many others," the Voluntad Popular founder said. Additionally, this coming Dec. 6, Venezuela has a chance again to be a better country, but Lopez feared that it will be once again ruined because of the government's wrong ways of undermining the elections.

Watch the news about Venezuela's election by Al Jazeera America News.