Venezuela’s electoral commission declares Maduro the winner

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was officially declared the winner of the country’s disputed presidential election on Monday, a day after both the opposition and the incumbent president declared themselves winners in the election.

The National Electoral Council, loyal to Maduro’s government, announced his victory, giving him a third six-year term as leader of an economy recovering from collapse and a people hungry for change. Among those in attendance were the defense, communications and technology ministers and the speaker of the National Assembly, who erupted in applause.

“We have never been motivated by hatred. On the contrary, we have always been victims of those in power,” Maduro said at a nationally televised ceremony. “There is once again an attempt to stage a fascist and counter-revolutionary coup in Venezuela.”

“We already know the film. This time there will be no weaknesses,” he added, saying Venezuela’s “laws will be respected.”

The opposition has vowed to stand by the results of the vote but there was no immediate comment. Opposition leaders are scheduled to hold a press conference later in the day.

Within hours, thousands of Venezuelans had taken to the streets near Caracas’s poorest neighborhoods to protest against Maduro’s claims.

In the Petare district, people began walking chanting against Maduro, with masked young people ripping down election posters of the president that had been hung from streetlights. Heavily armed security forces waited just a few blocks away from the peaceful protests.

“The government will fall. It will fall. This government will fall!” one protester shouted as he walked.

People on rooftops watched, banging pots and waving Venezuelan flags in a show of support. Some protesters tried to block highways, including one that links the capital with the port city, home to the country’s main international airport.

Officials postponed releasing a detailed vote tally for Sunday’s election. Maduro The winner received 51% of the vote, while retired diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez received 44% of the vote, in a closely contested contest between the two candidates.

“The Venezuelan people and the whole world know what happened.” Gonzales But he and his allies urged their supporters to remain calm and called on the government not to stoke the conflict.

Several foreign governments, including the United States and the European Union, have withheld recognition of the election results.

The opposition, who have failed to oust Maduro in three rounds of protests since 2014, put their faith in the ballot box in one of the most peaceful elections in recent years, reflecting hopes that Venezuela can avoid bloodshed and end 25 years of one-party rule.

The country boasts the world’s largest oil reserves and was once Latin America’s most advanced economy, but has suffered a steep decline since Maduro came to power, including plummeting oil prices, widespread shortages of basic goods and 130,000 percent hyperinflation.

we Oil Sanctions Dozens of countries tried to remove Maduro from power after his 2018 reelection, which they called illegitimate, but the sanctions only accelerated the exodus of some 7.7 million Venezuelans from the crisis-ridden country.

The opposition’s call for calm is partly driven by protest fatigue among voters, who polls show are in no rush to take to the streets and upend their lives as in the past.

Voters I started lining up to vote on Saturday evening.This has raised opposition hopes that they can undermine President Maduro’s power base.

The official results came as a shock to many who had been celebrating online and outside polling stations in what they believed to be a landslide victory for Gonzalez.

“I’m so happy,” said Merling Fernandez, 31, a bank employee, as opposition representatives emerged from a polling station in a working-class neighborhood of Caracas to announce the results, showing Gonzalez had won more than twice as many votes as Maduro. Dozens of people nearby broke into an impromptu rendition of the national anthem.

“This is the path to a new Venezuela,” Fernández added, fighting back tears. “We are all tired of this bondage.”

Chile’s leftist leader Gabriel Boric called the results “hard to believe,” while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US had “serious concerns” that the announced tally did not reflect the actual number of votes or the will of the people.

The US-based Carter Center called on Venezuelan authorities to immediately release the results of the tally of 30,000 voting machines. The Atlanta-based center has sent a small group to Venezuela to view the election.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado He said Gonzalez’s margin of victory was “overwhelming,” based on tallies the campaign received from delegates placed at about 40% of the ballot boxes.

Authorities delayed releasing results from 30,000 polling stations across the country, promising they would be released “in the next few hours”, a delay that has hampered attempts to verify the results.

Mr. Gonzalez was the opposition’s most unlikely figure: The 74-year-old was a little-known figure until he was appointed at the last minute in April to represent Mr. Machado, a leading opposition figure who had been blocked from running for any public office for 15 years by the Maduro-controlled Supreme Court.

The delay in announcing the winner, six hours after polls were scheduled to close, signaled fierce debate within the government over how to proceed after Maduro’s opponents declared victory earlier in the evening.

Authorities set Sunday’s election to coincide with the 70th birthday of Hugo Chavez, the revered leftist firebrand who committed the Bolivarian Revolution to Maduro when he died of cancer in 2013. But Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela, which controls all branches of government, are more unpopular than ever among many voters who blame oppressive low-wage policies that have stoked hunger, crippled the oil industry and caused poverty. Divided families For migration.

The president’s selling point in this election was economic stability, which he touted, citing entrepreneurship, a stable currency and low inflation. The International Monetary Fund projects the economy, which shrank 71% between 2012 and 2020, to grow 4% this year, the fastest in Latin America.

But most Venezuelans have not seen their quality of life improve, with many earning less than $200 a month and families struggling to afford basic necessities. Get a second or third jobThe cost of a basket of groceries to feed a family of four for a month is an estimated $385.

Opponents I managed to get in line It has supported a single candidate after years of internal party divisions and election boycotts thwarted its ambitions of toppling the ruling coalition.

Machado, a former congressman, won an opposition primary in October with a landslide victory, receiving more than 90% of the vote. After being barred from running for president, he chose a university professor as his replacement, but the National Electoral Commission banned her from registering as well. So Gonzalez, a political newcomer, was chosen.

The opposition has sought to exploit the vast inequalities that have resulted from a crisis that has seen Venezuelans abandon their national currency, the bolivar, for the U.S. dollar.

Messrs. Gonzalez and Machado focused their campaigns on Venezuela’s vast interior, which has never seen the economic boom seen in Caracas in recent years, and they promised a government that would create enough jobs to attract Venezuelans living abroad. To go home And then they reunite with their families.

Associated Press writer Fabiola Sanchez contributed to this report.