Nicolás Maduro is the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election, according to official results published by the electoral council.
The head of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Elvis Amoroso, a close ally of Maduro, said that with 80% of the votes counted, President Maduro obtained 51.20% of the votes, compared to 44.02% for his main rival.
Opposition calls for recount
Venezuela’s opposition, however, alleges widespread fraud in the vote count, including threats against voters before they went to the polls, and has vowed to contest the result. It has joined forces with candidate Edmundo Gonzalez to oust Maduro after 11 years in power.
The opposition sent thousands of representatives to polling stations across the country so it could announce its own vote count. But a spokesman for the coalition led by Gonzalez said delegates were “forced to leave” on several occasions.
The opposition also called on supporters to be vigilant at polling stations to check the counting process in the “crucial hours” after the closing, amid widespread fears that the government would try to steal votes.
The Socialist Party has been in power for 25 years
Polls have given Gonzalez a large lead over Maduro.
There was a strong sense that the country’s citizens wanted change after 25 years in which the socialist PSUV party was in power – first under the late President Hugo Chávez and, after his death from cancer in 2013, under Nicolas Maduro.
The PSUV gained control not only of the executive and legislative branches, but also of a large part of the Judiciary.
The last elections in 2018 were widely rejected by the international community as not free, and ahead of these elections there were widespread fears that the process could also be marred by irregularities.
Threats of bloodbath
These fears were further fueled by President Maduro, who threatened a bloodbath if he was not elected.
“The future of Venezuela for the next 50 years will be decided on July 28,” Maduro said yesterday before the polls closed: “Today it is decided whether peace or war will prevail in the country.” He referred to the possibility of “a bloodbath in a civil war that the fascists could cause.”
A position that caused “fear” in Brazilian President Lula: the center-left veteran commented that Nicolás Maduro “must understand that when you win you stay”, but “when you lose, you leave”.
Source: BBC