Maduro declared Venezuela election winner, opposition reject result

Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner of Venezuela's presidential election Sunday but the opposition and key regional neighbours immediately rejected the official results.

The opposition coalition itself claimed victory by a large margin, after an election campaign tainted by claims of political intimidation and fears of fraud, and following predictions by pollsters that Maduro would lose but was unlikely to concede after more than a decade in power.

He won re-election with 51.2 percent of votes, while opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia received 44.2 percent, according to the electoral council (CNE), which in its majority is loyal to the president.

Maduro, 61, addressed celebrating supporters at the presidential palace minutes after the announcement.

"I can say, before the people of Venezuela and the world, I am Nicolas Maduro Moros, the re-elected president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela," Maduro said.

"There will be peace, stability and justice. Peace and respect for the law."

But the opposition coalition insisted it had garnered 70 percent of the vote, rejecting the figures from the CNE.

"We want to say to all of Venezuela and the world that Venezuela has a new president-elect and it is (candidate) Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia," opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told journalists, calling the official result "another fraud".

Gonzalez Urrutia, a 74-year-old former diplomat, said "our fight continues, and we will not rest until the will of the Venezuelan people is reflected," while underlining that there was no call for protests.

"The results are undeniable. The country chose a peaceful change," he wrote on X ahead of the official result.

Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves also denounced the official result as "fraudulent," while Chile's president described it as "hard to believe."

Peru announced it had recalled its ambassador for consultation over the results.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed "serious concerns" that the result did not reflect the will of Venezuelans.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on Caracas to ensure "full transparency in the electoral process."

Venezuela's allies, including China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras and Bolivia, however, congratulated Maduro.

Independent polls had predicted Sunday's vote would bring an end to 25 years of "Chavismo," the populist movement founded by Maduro's socialist predecessor and mentor, the late Hugo Chavez.

Since 2013, Maduro has been at the helm of the once wealthy petro-state where GDP dropped by 80 percent in a decade, pushing more than seven million of its 30 million citizens to emigrate.

He is accused of locking up critics and harassing the opposition in a climate of rising authoritarianism.

Gonzalez Urrutia had replaced popular Machado on the ticket after authorities loyal to Maduro excluded her from the race.

Machado, who campaigned far and wide for her proxy, had urged voters on Sunday to keep "vigil" at their polling stations in the "decisive hours" of counting amid widespread fears of fraud.

Maduro had previously warned of a "bloodbath" if he lost.

'PREPARED TO DEFEND'

He counts on a loyal electoral apparatus, military leadership and state institutions in a system of well-established political patronage.

On Friday, a Venezuelan NGO said Caracas was holding 305 "political prisoners" and had arrested 135 people with links to the opposition campaign since January.

Ballots were cast on machines that print paper receipts placed into a container. The electronic votes go directly to a centralized CNE database.

The opposition had deployed about 90,000 volunteer election monitors to polling stations nationwide.

Elvis Amoroso, the CNE president, denounced an "aggression against the data transmission system that delayed" the count.

Maduro also referred to a "hacking" of the voting system, as he went to celebrate with supporters.

Voter turnout was 59 percent, Amoroso said.

An estimated 17 million Venezuelans in the country were eligible to cast ballots.

WATCHING 'VERY CLOSELY'

Sunday's election was the product of a mediated deal reached last year between the government and opposition.

The agreement to hold the vote led the United States to temporarily ease sanctions imposed after Maduro's 2018 re-election, which was rejected as a sham by dozens of Western and Latin American countries.

But the sanctions were snapped back after Maduro reneged on agreed conditions.

Washington is keen for a return to stability in Venezuela, which boasts the world's largest oil reserves but has severely diminished production capacity.

Economic misery in the South American nation has been a major source of migration pressure on the US southern border.

Most Venezuelans live on just a few dollars a month, with the country's health care and education systems in disrepair.

The government blames sanctions, but observers also point the finger at corruption and government inefficiency.

Concerns over the fairness of the vote were earlier stoked when Caracas blocked several international observers from the country at the last minute.