Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro wins re-election, as opposition disputes results

Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of the country’s presidential election on Sunday after securing more than 50% of the vote, although the opposition contends that the results are not accurate.

The National Electoral Council said at around midnight that Maduro received 51% of the vote, while the main opposition candidate, Edmundo González, had 44% support, according to The Associated Press.

Elvis Amoroso, head of the National Electoral Council, said the results were based on 80% of voting stations and represented an irreversible trend.

Despite Maduro being declared the winner of a third term, the opposition claimed victory, setting up a showdown with the government over the results.

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The electoral authority, controlled by Maduro loyalists, did not immediately publish the results from each of the 30,000 polling booths across the country, impeding the opposition’s ability to challenge the results after alleging it only had data for about 30% of the ballot boxes.

“The Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened,” González said.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado claimed González’s margin of victory was “overwhelming.” Machado said the opposition had voting results from about 40% of ballot boxes across the country and that more were expected overnight.

Officials and lawmakers in the U.S. and elsewhere expressed skepticism about the validity of Venezuela’s presidential election results after Maduro was declared the victor.

Speaking in Tokyo, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. has “serious concerns” about the announced outcome.

Blinken said the U.S. feared the result did not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people, and called for election officials to immediately release the full results. He also said the U.S. and the international community would respond accordingly.

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The opposition’s presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez waves as he leaves the polling station with his wife Mercedes Lopez, center, and daughter Mariana after voting in presidential elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP)

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U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio wrote on the social media platform X that the “Maduro regime in #Venezuela has just carried out the most predictable and ridiculous sham election in modern history.”

Chilean President Gabriel Boric Font also wrote on X that “the delivery of the results of this transcendental election in Venezuela must be transparent, timely and fully reflect the popular will expressed at the polls.”

“The international community, of which Chile is a part of, will not accept anything else,” he said.

Opposition representatives in Venezuela said tallies they collected from campaign representatives at 30% of voting centers in the country showed González defeating the president.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.