Venezuela’s opposition say they have proof that challenger Edmundo González defeated President Nicolás Maduro in Sunday’s presidential elections, as street demonstrations against Maduro’s victory turned deadly.
González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told reporters Monday that they have obtained more than 70% of tally sheets from the voting that show Gonzalez winning more than 6 million votes, while Maduro won over 2 million votes.
González and Machado announced their claims hours after Venezuela’s electoral council, which is controlled by Maduro, announced that the president had won the election with 51% of the vote compared to 44% for González. The council’s results widely contradicted exit polling of voters that showed González winning by a large margin.
The results did not include vote tallies from individual polling centers, which election watchdogs said was critical for determining the accuracy of the vote count.
The announcement of Maduro’s victory shortly after midnight Monday sparked angry protests in the capital Caracas and across Venezuela, with residents banging pots and pans throughout the night and into the late morning. Across the country, at least one statue of Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s late predecessor and political mentor, had been torn down.
The demonstrators were confronted by police officers who fired tear gas to disperse the crowds. At least one person was killed in north-central Yaracuy state.
Leading up to the election, the Maduro regime arrested dozens of opposition campaign workers. The government, to curb voter turnout, only permitted 69,000 of the nearly 5 million voting-age Venezuelans who had moved abroad to cast a ballot.
Machado called on opposition supporters to hold demonstrations in Caracas Tuesday.
The announced results were greeted Monday with skepticism from several of Venezuela’s South American neighbors. President Gabriel Boric of Chile called the election results “difficult to believe.” Foreign ministers from Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay issued a joint statement calling for a transparent count of the vote, saying it is the only way to ensure the results respect the will of the Venezuelan voters.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil responded to the criticism by recalling the country’s diplomats from Argentina, Costa Rica, Panama and Peru, as well as Chile, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”
But Maduro received support from leftist leaders in Cuba, Nicaragua, Russia, Bolivia and Honduras, who applauded his victory.
Maduro is closing out his second term as president, and Sunday’s vote represented his toughest electoral challenge. The oil-rich nation has been mired in chaos under Maduro’s autocratic rule since taking power after Chavez’s death in 2013, with millions of people fleeing soaring inflation, scarcity of food and starvation.
The 74-year-old González is a retired diplomat who was thrust into the campaign in April after Venezuela’s Supreme Court blocked Machado from the ballot.
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
