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, after an election campaign tainted by accusations 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," he 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 CNE figures.

"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 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 denounced the CNE result as "fraudulent," while Chile's president called it "hard to believe."

With 80 percent of votes tallied, according to the CNE, Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo called Monday for a total count and "independent audit" of ballots.

Peru announced it recalled its ambassador over the results.

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

Britain also voiced concerns about allegations of vote count "irregularities."

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

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said he spoke with "brother" Maduro to convey congratulations "for the historic electoral triumph achieved."

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

Since 2013, Maduro has been helming 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 had urged voters 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.

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.

Voter turnout was 59 percent, Amoroso said, among some 17 million eligible voters.

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.

Sanctions were snapped back after Maduro reneged on agreed conditions.

Washington seeks 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, and endure biting shortages of electricity and fuel.

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