CARACAS, Venezuela
Venezuelans have taken to the streets after the electoral authority officially declared President Nicolas Maduro the winner of an election that the opposition says was marred by fraud.
Protests have erupted across
the country, with demonstrators even toppling a statue of Maduro’s predecessor,
Hugo Chavez, in the state of Falcon.
In the Petare area — one of
the poorest parts of the capital, Caracas — demonstrators shouted slogans
against the president, and some masked young people tore down his campaign
posters from lampposts.
Some protesters were also
headed towards Miraflores, the presidential palace.
Police were deployed in large
numbers across the city, and members of the National Guard were seen to be
firing tear gas to disperse demonstrators. There were also reports of
“colectivos” — pro-Maduro paramilitary groups — firing at protesters.
“It’s going to fall. It’s going to fall. This government is going fall!” some of the protesters shouted.
Public anger swelled after the
National Electoral Council (CNE) on Monday formally confirmed that Maduro had
been re-elected by a majority of Venezuelans to another six-year term as
president “for the period 2025-2031”.
But the CNE, which is
controlled by Maduro loyalists, has not released the tallies from each of the
30,000 polling stations across Venezuela, fuelling political tensions
in the South American nation and calls for greater transparency.
Opposition representatives
said the counts they collected from campaign representatives at the centres
show presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez trouncing Maduro.
In a press conference on
Monday evening, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado claimed her coalition
had more than 70 percent of the votes tallied and catalogued in an online
database.
“They show we have a president
elect, and that person is Edmundo Gonzalez,” Machado said, turning to the
presidential candidate, who stood by her side.
The CNE, however, maintained
Gonzalez had failed to defeat the president, earning 44 percent of the votes
compared with Maduro’s 51 percent.
Speaking in a televised
address from Caracas on Monday, Maduro, 61, claimed, without providing
evidence, that “an attempt is being made to impose a coup d’etat in Venezuela”.
“We already know this movie,
and this time, there will be no kind of weakness,” he added, saying Venezuela’s
“law will be respected”.
As Maduro spoke, demonstrators
began to gather in Caracas, and some tried to block freeways, including one
that connects the capital with a port city that is home to Venezuela’s main
international airport.
Opposition leaders also
rejected Maduro’s allegations, calling for peaceful protests across the
country.
“The Venezuelans and the
entire world know what happened,” Gonzalez said in his first remarks since the
results were announced.
Later, during the Monday
evening press conference, he reiterated his claim to victory while urging
supporters to remain calm.
“I speak to you at peace,
knowing the truth. And I want to tell all the Venezuelan people that there will
be expressed yesterday through their vote will be respected. We will make sure
that happens,” Gonzalez said.
“That is the only path towards
peace. We have in our hands the records that show our triumph — our
overwhelming triumph that cannot be reversed.”
Eating breakfast on a bench
next to an unopened business in Caracas on Monday morning, 28-year-old voter
Deyvid Cadenas said he felt cheated.
“I don’t believe yesterday’s
results,” Cadenas, who cast a ballot in a presidential election for the first
time on Sunday, told AP.
As the political uncertainty
continues to swirl, election observers and foreign leaders from around the
world have urged
Venezuela to release a full breakdown of the election results.
A spokesman for United Nations
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UN chief was calling “for complete
transparency” and “the timely publication of the election results and their
breakdown by polling stations”.
“The secretary-general trusts
that all electoral disputes will be addressed and resolved peacefully and calls
on all Venezuelan political leaders and their supporters for moderation,”
Stephane Dujarric told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.
The Carter Center, which sent
a team of electoral observers to Venezuela for the election, also called on the
electoral authority to immediately publish the presidential voting results by
polling station.
“The information contained in
the polling station-level results forms as transmitted to the CNE is critical
to our assessment and important for all Venezuelans,” the group said in a statement.
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