El Dorado, Venezuela (AFP)-Venezuela elected officials on Sunday for the first time for Essequibo region, an oil-rich territory that Caracas claims from neighboring Guyana as part of a centuries-old dispute.

The vote took place in a micro-district of 21,403 voters in Venezuela’s Bolivar state, on the Guyanese border. Caracas had specially created it for Sunday’s legislative and regional elections.

There were no polling stations in the 160,000-square-kilometer territory of (62,000-square-mile) Essequibo, which is administered by Guyana.

“Today, Essequibo has a governor,” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro told his supporters on Sunday evening moments after the country’s results were announced.

Neil Villamizar, the candidate for Maduro’s ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, received 4,720 votes, making him the first governor of Venezuela’s newly created 24th state.

“He will have full support for his work, because the people of Essequibo earned it, so that the people of Essequibo have all the rights as the people of Venezuela,” Maduro said.

Like in Essequibo, Maduro’s party swept the board across Venezuela in parliamentary and regional elections, which were boycotted by the opposition in protest over his disputed re-election last year.

Besides the governor, Essequibo also elected eight deputies and regional councilors.

Turnout in the tiny constituency — named “Guayana Esequiba” by Venezuelan authorities when it was created last year — was about 32 percent, and Villamizar received nearly all the votes.

Villamizar, a Navy commander who regularly appeared in uniform during his campaign, will have no power over the territory as his position is symbolic.

But he told AFP Sunday before voting in El Dorado, one of the towns in Bolivar participating in the vote, that the elections were another step toward achieving “full sovereignty” for the territory.

“We are focused on this task: to achieve through peaceful means… the recovery of the full sovereignty of Guayana Esequiba, in peace, with harmony, through diplomacy,” Villamizar added.

– ‘A threat’ –

Ahead of the vote, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali had denounced the election as a “threat.

Ali told AFP last week that Guyana “will do everything to ensure our territorial integrity and sovereignty is kept intact”.

The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world.

The territorial dispute is before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, which earlier this month ordered Venezuela to suspend plans to extend its election to Essequibo.

Maduro said Sunday, after casting his vote, Ali “will have to sit down with me to discuss and accept Venezuelan sovereignty.”

“With a governor, resources, a budget, and all the support I will provide, we will reclaim the Essequibo for the people,” Maduro said.