Nicolas Maduro Declared Winner in Disputed Venezuelan Vote

According to partial results announced by the electoral council, President Nicolás Maduro has won Venezuela's presidential election.

The head of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Elvis Amoroso - who is a close ally of Mr Maduro - said that with 80% of ballots counted, President Maduro had 51.20% of the vote, compared to 44.02% for his main rival.

The Venezuelan opposition were displeased with the CNE's announcement, tagging it as fraudulent and promising to challenge the electoral outcomes

It said its candidate, Edmundo González, had won with 70% of the votes and insisted he was the rightful president-elect.

The opposition said vote tallies it had received, as well as exit polls and quick counts, showed Mr González had a lead of 40 percentage points over the incumbent.

Opposition parties threw their weights behind Mr González in an attempt to unseat President Maduro after 11 years in power. And in line, opinion polls conducted ahead of the election had suggested Mr González would roundly defeat the president.

And while there were widespread fears that the government could resort to fraud, the opposition had hoped its lead would be so convincing, it would thwart any attempts by the Maduro administration to "steal the election".

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One of those that expressed his scepticism after the result was announced by the National Electoral Council, dominated by government loyalists was US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

He said the US had "serious concerns that the declared outcome does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people".

The Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, also noted that the result of the polls were unbelievable. He, therefore, demanded "total transparency of the minutes and the process, and that international observers not committed to the government account for the veracity of the results".

Uruguay's president said of the Maduro government: "They were going to 'win' regardless of the actual results."

Meanwhile, allies of Mr Maduro were quick to congratulate him.

The Cuban president declared that "the dignity and bravery of the Venezuelan people had triumphed over pressure and manipulation." Mr. Maduro hailed the outcome as "a triumph of peace and stability" to cheering supporters in Caracas.

He commended the Venezuelan election system as transparent and mocked the opposition, which he claimed "cries fraud" at every election.

The opposition had deployed thousands of observers to polling stations across the country to conduct its own vote count. However, a spokeswoman for the coalition led by Mr. González reported that their observers had been "forced to leave" many polling stations.

This is not the first election whose results have been contested. Mr. Maduro's victory in 2018 was also widely regarded as neither free nor fair. Concerns that this election would similarly be plagued by irregularities were heightened by President Maduro's assertion that he would win "by hook or by crook."

Voting in Venezuela is electronic. Voters punch in a button assigned to their preferred candidate on a voting machine.

The electronic results are sent to the CNE headquarters, but the machine also prints out a paper receipt which is then placed in a ballot box.