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”.
